On a sunny evening at the Governor's mansion in Santa Fe, Paloma Rivera from the Pueblo of Pojoaque danced for a crowd of people in fabulous outfits of silk and leather, feathers and rhinestones.
Designers, models and fashion-lovers gathered to launch the first Native Fashion Week, the organizers say the first of its kind in the United States.
"Why Native Fashion Week? Because the time is way overdue!" said organizer Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation), an art historian and curator, to cheers.
She said the fashion industry has long profited from Indigenous designs, but now it is time for Native designers to take the lead.
"Indigenous designers and artists are the original fashion makers of this land," Bear Robe said in an interview. "It just hasn't been framed as that, it's been framed as a curiosity or anthropological object."
The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, which also runs Santa Fe's Indian Market, is organizing the week's events.
"To see the amount of attention and love given to our communities right now is heartwarming and long overdue," said SWAIA executive director Jamie Schulze (Northern Cheyenne/Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate).
As more people appreciate Native art and Native history, Bear Robe said there is more interest in designers like the ones who will be participating in a symposium at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on Friday, May 3 and in runway shows at the Convention Center over the weekend. Tickets are available through the SWAIA website.
Other events during the week include a fundraiser at SITE Santa Fe at 6.30pm on May 4, including art, dance, sound and fashion. The money raised will go to support Indigenous artists through the 4KINSHIP Indigenous Futures Fund.
Despite all the growing attention and appreciation, Bear Robe said raising funding and sponsorship for an event like this is still very challenging.
"There is no shortage of Indigenous designers, of talent, of models, of the people who are interested," she said. "But I need a Native Oprah."
That is, someone with the resources as well as the will to champion Native creatives.
That challenge won't go away soon, but this is a night of celebration. Participating designer Himikalas Pamela Baker (Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw/Tlingit/Haida/Squamish) called the fashion week a great recognition of Indigenous art.
"Every piece tells a story," she said. "I think every designer you talk to, their pieces all tell a story of their history."
Model Richard Smallboy (Maskwacis Cree Nation) said art and Indigeneity are intertwined.
"I think that inherently as Indigenous people, we express ourselves in a creative and artistic way and that this has always been a part of who we are," he said.
He finds it natural for that art to modernize and change.
"The adaptive nature of how we are celebrating our fashion and our art is something that we have genetically within our blood, within our nations, within our practices, within our culture," he said.
