Native American fashion facts for kids
Native American fashion is all about the cool clothes and accessories designed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These designers often use traditional patterns and materials in their art. They create amazing pieces for high-end fashion shows and markets around the world.
Their designs might use techniques like beadwork, quillwork (using porcupine quills!), leather work, and textile arts. This includes weaving, twining, and tufting. Sometimes, though, designers choose not to use any traditional materials.
In the United States, there's a law called the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. It says that to be called a Native American designer, artists must be part of a recognized tribe. This helps protect their unique art. In Canada, there aren't specific laws for First Nations designs. But some trademarks, like "igloo tag" for Inuit art, help protect their work.
When Native American designers first joined the modern fashion world in the 1950s, they used a "pan-Indian" approach. This means they used symbols and designs that many people recognized as Native American. This helped them become popular with buyers. As more Native designers became famous, they started showing their own unique styles. Many use traditional themes in new ways. Others update old clothing styles by changing necklines or sleeve lengths.
Sometimes, non-Native designers use Native American cultural designs without permission. This is called cultural appropriation. When designers respectfully use Native American images, it can help people learn about these cultures. But copying designs or using them in the wrong way can cause problems. It can also create negative stereotypes. It's important for designers to pay Native artists fairly and give them credit for their work. Many people are now working to protect the designs and heritage of Indigenous designers.
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How Did Native American Fashion Start?
Museums have collected old Native American clothing for a long time. But these collections often didn't show how clothing changed over time. This was due to policies that tried to change Native American cultures. However, museums focused on Indigenous cultures have shown modern Native fashion. For example, the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City had a "Native Fashion Now" exhibit in 2017.
Native peoples have always made clothes. But before the 1900s, these clothes were mostly for personal or special ceremonies. In the 1800s and early 1900s, some government policies tried to stop Native American cultures. This included their clothing traditions. Later, laws like the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act encouraged Native peoples to reconnect with their cultures. This included making traditional clothing again.
In 1942, an anthropologist named Frederic H. Douglas wanted to show how beautiful Native American fashion was. He put on a fashion show with clothes made by Native Americans between 1830 and 1950. Around the same time, Lloyd Kiva New, a Cherokee designer, started showing his clothes and accessories. He used hand-woven and dyed fabrics, plus leather crafts.
In 1945, New opened a studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. He first focused on belts, hats, and purses. His purses, inspired by Navajo medicine bags, became very popular. They were decorated with hand-worked metals. To make more items, he started combining machine work with handcrafting. He also began a training program for new workers. His goal was to create designs for high-end buyers.
New's designs were featured in magazines like Harper's Bazaar. He sold his bags in famous stores like Neiman Marcus. He then started making clothes, focusing on simple designs and good materials. He used woven Cherokee fabrics, beads, and silver work in his coats and dresses. This helped create a "Southwestern chic" trend in the 1950s. In 1951, New was the only Native American designer at the Atlantic City International Fashion Show. He gained national fame. He started using silk screen fabrics with Native designs. He drew from many tribal styles, like Pima basket weaving and Hopi pottery patterns.
New wanted to help other Indigenous artists become fashion designers. He also wanted to protect cultural traditions. In 1959, he started focusing on education. This led to the creation of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1962. The school aimed to help students feel proud of their heritage. It also taught them skills to improve their job chances. New taught textile design. Josephine Myers-Wapp (Comanche) taught traditional garment making. She taught students to use materials like feathers, leather, and shells. She also taught methods like beadwork and ribbonwork. By 1965, IAIA students were holding fashion shows. Within ten years, their textile design programs were famous worldwide.
In Mexico, many Indigenous communities made their own traditional clothing before 1950. As roads improved, people moved to cities. Many stopped wearing traditional clothes to fit in. In 1965, Gilberto Ortiz (Mixtec) moved to Mexico City. He trained as a tailor. He designed for famous people like movie star María Félix. In 2006, Ortiz launched his own fashion label, Gioros. In 2012, he was named one of the top three tailors in the world.
In the 1960s, Frankie Welch (who identified as Eastern Cherokee) became a fashion consultant in Washington, D.C. She opened her own store in 1963. She was known for scarves, like her Cherokee syllabary design. She made accessories for First Ladies like Pat Nixon and Betty Ford. Welch also designed dresses for First Ladies. One of her green silk gowns for Betty Ford is at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
In the 1970s, other Native American designers became known. These included Jewel Gilham (Blackfeet) and Remonia Jacobsen (Otoe-Iowa). Gilham designed clothes for working women. Jacobsen's work featured loose dresses with decorative techniques. These included embroidered ribbonwork and appliqué. Their fashion helped create a sense of unity among Native Americans.
New Styles Emerge (1975-1990)
When Josephine Wapp retired in 1975, Sandy Fife Wilson (Muscogee) took over her course. She added "Traditional and Contemporary Fashion Design." Fife's students formed the Full Moon Fashions group. They started selling to non-Native women. In 1982, Wendy Ponca (Osage) took over the fashion design courses at IAIA. She changed them to "fiber arts." She founded the Waves of the Earth Fashion Group. She made her students participate in IAIA fashion shows. This helped them show and sell their work.
Ponca changed Native American fashion by letting designers decide if their work would include traditional influences. She taught them design and color theory. But she let students use these lessons in their own ways. Ponca encouraged creativity and new ideas. For example, some students used mylar, a space-age material, to create designs.
The fashion show at the Santa Fe Indian Market became another place to show student work. It was hosted for almost 20 years by fashion expert, Jeri Ah-be-hill (Kiowa). Native Uprising was started in the 1980s. It was a group of Indigenous artists, designers, and models from IAIA. Their goal was to build a modern Native fashion movement. They wanted members to earn money from their fashion shows.
In 1981, Margaret Wood (Navajo/Seminole) published Native American Fashion: Modern Adaptations of Traditional Designs. This was the first book about modern Native American fashion. Also in the 1980s, designers like Luanne Belcourt (Chippewa-Cree) and Myrtle Raining Bird (Chippewa-Cree) ran their company Sitting Eagles. They sold custom-made clothes to high-end buyers. Ardina Moore (Quapaw-Osage) started Buffalo Sun in Oklahoma in 1983.
Healthcare worker and designer, Marjorie Bear Don't Walk (Chippewa-Salish) designed fancy clothes for working women. She showed her designs at conferences. She also had a mail order business. Customers could send her materials, and she would use them in her designs. In 1984, Selina Curley (Apache-Navajo) started Traditions by Selina. She wanted to keep her heritage's traditions alive. Her designs were often based on the Apache camp dress.
The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian hosted Talking Threads: Contemporary Native American Fashions in 1986. The show featured designs by Joyce Begay-Foss (Navajo) and others. The next year, the Red Earth Festival started in Oklahoma City. It showed creations by non-Native designer Michael Kors and Phyllis Fife (Muscogee). This showed that Native clothing was part of mainstream fashion. Fife was part of a group called Fashion Drums of Red Earth. They made the Red Earth Festival fashion show an annual event. They showed that Native clothing can be worn every day.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 was passed in the United States Congress. It said that artists must be part of a recognized tribe to sell their work as Native American. This law aimed to stop non-Natives from copying Native American designs. For Indigenous Americans, symbols like the headdress are sacred. Using such objects wrongly, like in a fashion show, was too common. The law made it illegal to sell items by those not connected to a tribe. But it did little when designs or names were copied. The law protects tribes as a whole, not individual designers. So, there is no protection for their fashion designs.
Soon after, Canada also debated protecting intellectual property rights. Canada has no specific laws against cultural appropriation. Most protections are for economic rights, not heritage rights. But two trademarks protect Native artists. Since 1959, the "igloo tag" can only be used by Inuit artists. The Cowichan Band Council registered "Genuine Cowichan Approved" for clothing designs.
Fashion in the 1990s and 2000s
The 1990s saw two main styles in Native American fashion. One group made simple, smooth designs. The other focused on avant-garde (very new and experimental) Indigenous fashion. Designers who liked classic, clean lines included Betty David (Spokane), known for her shearling coats. Dorothy Grant (Haida) used images of plants and animals from the Pacific Northwest. Penny Singer (Navajo) added photos to her traditional shirts.
Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo) and Dorothy Grant were the first Native American designers to show at New York Fashion Week in 2009. Ortiz's work is known for being cutting-edge. He uses colors and shapes from pottery in his designs. Angela DeMontigny (Chippewa-Cree-Métis) from Canada also followed classic lines. She started with leather and suede clothes.
In 1991, D’Arcy J. Moses (Pehdzeh Ki) signed a contract with the Fur Council of Canada. His bold designs with fur were sold in high-end stores. Other Indigenous designers from this time included master weaver Margaret Roach Wheeler (Choctaw-Chickasaw). Sean McCormick (Métis) started designing footwear in the 1990s. In 2008, he launched Manitobah Mukluks. Virginia Yazzie Ballenger (Navajo) was known for her "fluted broomstick skirt and matching velveteen blouse."
Wendy Ponca, a leader of the avant-garde group, left IAIA in 1993. The fashion courses at IAIA were removed in 1995. But Native designers were still creating amazing high fashion. Some of Ponca's students in the 1990s became famous designers. These included Pilar Agoyo (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo), who worked on costumes for movies like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Patricia Michaels (Taos Pueblo) took second place in season 11 of Project Runway.
Since 1995, the Canadian Aboriginal Festival (CANAB) has hosted fashion shows for First Nations designers. In 1998, the Denver Art Museum hosted Indian Chic. It was the first time a major museum showed Indigenous garments as "fashion." Other Native designers in the 2000s included Orlando Dugi (Navajo) and Jamie Okuma (Luiseño-Shoshone-Bannock). Okuma became the youngest person to win the Best of Show award at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2000.
Since the early 2000s, Indigenous designs have become popular again in Latin America. Many non-Native designers partnered with Indigenous artisans to create fabrics. In many countries, Indigenous heritage is seen as part of the national identity. But often, designers didn't recognize that these designs belonged to Indigenous communities. After 2010, this started to change. People began to respect original Indigenous designs and designers.
One innovator was Franklin Janeta (Puruhá) from Ecuador. He started as an embroidery artisan as a child. In 2000, he opened Vispu to sell his designs. He changed traditional clothing styles to make them more modern. Around the same time, Eliana Paco Paredes (Aymara) from Bolivia started designing. She based her fashions on traditional cholitas costumes. She used wool or aguayo fabrics, adding lace or silk and decorating them with rhinestones. In 2016, she was invited to New York Fashion Week.
In 2005, the IAIA sponsored Tribal Fusions. This event brought together designers from Africa with Native American designers. It was a chance for designers from different Indigenous groups to share ideas. In 2009, Jessica Metcalfe (Chippewa), a scholar, started a fashion blog called "Beyond Buckskin." She used it to promote Native American designers. She also called out companies that copied Native culture. The next year, Patricia Michaels formed UNRESERVED Alliance. She wanted to make sure Native American fashion designers were shown at New York Fashion Week.
Native Fashion Today (2011 and Beyond)
Native American designers realized that selling only to Indigenous peoples limited their business. So, they started creating clothes that appealed to more people. These clothes still came from their cultural heritage. Early designers used a pan-Indian approach. But today's Indigenous designers often stick to their own tribal or regional clothing techniques. In 2012, Kelly Holmes (Cheyenne River Lakota), a former model, started Native Max. It was "the first Native American fashion magazine." Jessica Metcalf opened a fashion store in Gardena, North Dakota, that same year. She also created Beyond Buckskin Lookbook, the "first compilation of modern Native fashion produced exclusively by Natives."
In Ecuador, Lucía Guillín (Puruhá) launched Churandy in 2012. She featured dress styles from Indigenous Andes communities with modern changes. Her clothes now include blouses, jackets, and shorts with embroidery patterns. The same year, Sisa Morocho (Puruhá) launched Sumak Churay in Quito. She used designs from the Puruhá culture. She decorated them with beads and sequins on bright fabrics. In 2015, Morocho opened a second store.
In 2013, Victoria Kakuktinniq (Inuit) started Victoria's Arctic Fashion. She makes fur and leather winter clothes. This includes headbands, jackets, gloves, and parkas. She uses sealskin and decorates them with fox fur and embroidery. In 2015, Kakuktinniq won the Business of the Year award in Nunavut.
In 2016, a big traveling exhibit called "Native Fashion Now" put a spotlight on modern Native American fashion. It traveled to museums across the U.S. It showed designs from 75 fashion designers from Canada and the United States. The exhibit featured many styles from different cultures. Becki Bitternose (George Gordon) designs jackets from Pendleton blankets. She was featured at the 2016 New York Fashion Week.
Vancouver hosted its first Indigenous Fashion Week in 2017. It featured designs from many First Nations designers. These included Sho Sho Esquiro (Kaska Dena-Cree), known for fancy gowns with fur and shells. Evan Ducharme (Métis) focuses on eco-friendly designs. Jeneen Frei Njootli (Vuntut Gwitchin) used fur and hides in her collection. Jill Setah (Yunesit'in) also participated. She had already shown her work at Oxford Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week. Tishynah Buffalo (George Gordon) was invited to London Fashion Week in 2017. She showed her new designs, which often use Pendleton blankets and Cree floral patterns. Helen Oro (Pelican Lake) designs fashion accessories. She adds beadwork to glasses, headbands, and heels.
Notable Native American Fashion Designers
- Tammy Beauvais - designed a cape for Michelle Obama.
- Tishynah Buffalo - uses Cree designs.
- Eliana Paco Paredes - Aymara fashion designer.
