The fashion runway in Santa Fe is about to get even bigger.
Following this weekend’s Southwestern Association for American Indian Arts, or SWAIA, fashion shows at Santa Fe Indian Market, the annual event will transition into Santa Fe Indigenous Fashion Week May 2 to 5, 2024.
After 10 years of producing and curating successful contemporary Indigenous fashion shows and exhibitions for SWAIA and multiple international institutions, curator and art historian Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation) said it’s time to step up the event.
“SWAIA’s Indigenous Fashion Show began in 2014 with no budget, a U-Haul to transport models to the outside runway location and a DJ with a microphone. To have the support of both SWAIA and the City of Santa Fe is immense. We plan to create the fashion hub for and to represent the diversity of Indigenous designers from the United States and Canada on a national platform,” she said.
WWD chatted with Bear Robe about the development:
WWD: Why create this new week?
Amber-Dawn Bear Robe: The fashion show has really outgrown the limited space and time that it has during market, because right now we share the physical space at the convention center with the “best in show” and with all of these other events and the gala. So this is giving it a chance to stand on its own and showcase the work and the talent that is out there in Native North America.
WWD: Why is now the time?
A.B.R.: There’s many reasons why interest in Native fashion has peaked. And I go back to the social construct that is mirroring what’s happening in the rest of America and Canada, which is an awareness that there needs to be more room for representation.
WWD: There have been Indigenous fashion weeks in Canada, right?
A.B.R.: Yes, they actually started their fashion shows after we started. And so we definitely need to get up to speed here. But you know, with Canada, there’s a different funding structure, which makes doing artistic events much more financially feasible, because of federal and provincial support from the government. In America, we’re really reliant on sponsorship, private and corporate sponsorship.
WWD: Have you secured sponsors?
A.B.R.: We don’t have a major luxury car company that will underwrite the whole fashion week, we’re still looking for something like that.
WWD: Who do you anticipate attending, the industry, the public, both?
A.B.R.: I would love the industry to attend, of course. But because this is the first year and there’s a huge demographic of America that doesn’t even know Native people exist, let alone Native fashion, let alone contemporary Native fashion, we have a lot of awareness and representation to get out. It’s great for Indigenous designers and models to go to New York Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, whatever it may be, but I really look at Indigenous Fashion Week as our place. It’s about making our own environment.
I’d love for this to be the global place for people to experience and to work with Native designers and models. In Santa Fe, all the ingredients are here — the artists, designers and talent coming from across Canada and the U.S., and the collectors of Indigenous art. It’s also the place the Native community comes in terms of film and television. So this really is a hub that nurtures all those artistic expressions. It’s like a 22nd-century powwow in that we all come together.
WWD: Will designers show individually?
A.B.R.: We’ll be having a dialogue and discussion with designers to see, what do they want? How do they see this moving forward? We want designers to really have a say in how this is shaped and formed.
WWD: Is it too soon to say who is participating?
A.B.R.: I do have some confirmed names, and many more will follow: Section 36, Maria Hupfield, Ginew, Caroline Monnet, Celeste Pedri-Spade and Randy Barton. I’m also really going to be pushing the wearable arts, in terms of artists, many of them working in Canada, who are actually first and foremost known as performance artists, but who work with textiles. I want to bring that to the runway.
WWD: Since Native designers have a lot of mediums and approaches, I imagine it won’t be everyone showing fall clothes, or anything like that?
A.B.R.: Right, what is unique is there are so many different approaches. We’re making our own narrative here rather than trying to fit into this ideology of what is out there, which I think is great.
WWD: Beyond runway shows, will there be other events?
A.B.R.: This is also meant to look at the layers and complexity of Native fashion beyond the visual beauty. There is no Indigenous fashion theory, historical fashion garments and clothing have been framed as anthropological rather than fashion. So we’re not in the academic discourse and that’s something I’m really wanting to change by talking critically and having writers and scholars come here to learn, to research and to write.
WWD: Can designers apply to participate and where?
ABR: We have a website swaianativefashion.org, and designers and models can apply. We work with all different sizes, shapes, human beings, aliens, whatever it may be. We don’t just work with Indigenous models.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.