Indigenous fashion week in Santa Fe, New Mexico, explores heritage in
silk and hides
[May 10, 2025]
By MORGAN LEE
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Fashion designers from across North America are
bringing together inspiration from their Indigenous heritage, culture
and everyday lives to three days of runway modeling that started Friday
in a leading creative hub and marketplace for Indigenous art.
A fashion show affiliated with the century-old Santa Fe Indian Market is
collaborating this year with a counterpart from Vancouver, Canada, in a
spirit of Indigenous solidarity and artistic freedom. A second,
independent runway show at a rail yard district in the city has nearly
doubled the bustle of models, makeup and final fittings.
Elements of Friday's collections from six Native designers ran the gamut
from silk parasols to a quilted hoodie, knee-high fur boots and suede
leather earrings that dangled to the waste. Models on the Santa Fe
catwalks include professionals, dancers and Indigenous celebrities from
TV and the political sphere.
Clothing and accessories rely on materials ranging from of wool trade
cloth to animal hides, featuring traditional beadwork, ribbons and
jewelry with some contemporary twists that include digitally rendered
designs and urban Native American streetwear from Phoenix.
“Native fashion, it’s telling a story about our understanding of who we
are individually and then within our communities,” said Taos Pueblo
fashion designer Patricia Michaels, of “Project Runway” reality TV fame.
“You’re getting designers from North America that are here to express a
lot of what inspires them from their own heritage and culture.”
Santa Fe style
The stand-alone spring fashion week for Indigenous design is a recent
outgrowth of haute couture at the summer Santa Fe Indian Market, where
teeming crowds flock to outdoor displays by individual sculptors,
potters, jewelers and painters.
Designer Sage Mountainflower remembers playing in the streets at Indian
Market as a child in the 1980s while her artist parents sold paintings
and beadwork. She forged a different career in environmental
administration, but the world of high fashion called to her as she sewed
tribal regalia for her children at home and, eventually, brought
international recognition.
At age 50, Mountainflower on Friday presented her “Taandi” collection —
the Tewa word for “Spring” — grounded in satin and chiffon fabric that
includes embroidery patterns that invoke her personal and family
heritage at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in the Upper Rio Grande Valley.
“I pay attention to trends, but a lot of it’s just what I like,” said
Mountainflower, who also traces her heritage to Taos Pueblo and the
Navajo Nation. “This year it’s actually just looking at springtime and
how it’s evolving. … It’s going to be a colorful collection."
More than 20 designers are presenting at the invitation of the
Southwestern Association for Indian Arts.
Fashion plays a prominent part in Santa Fe's renowned arts ecosystem,
with Native American vendors each day selling jewelry in the central
plaza, while the Institute for American Indian Arts delivers
fashion-related college degrees in May.
This week, a gala at the New Mexico governor’s mansion welcomed fashion
designers to town, along with social mixers at local galleries and
bookstores and plans for pop-up fashion stores to sell clothes fresh off
the fashion runway.
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Native Designer Lauren Good Day, right, is accompanied by a model
wearing her design after her runway show at the 2025 Native Fashion
Show, Friday, May 9, 2025, in Santa Fe, N.M. (AP Photo/Roberto E.
Rosales)
 International vision
A full-scale collaboration with Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week is
bringing a northern, First Nations flair to the gathering this year
with many designers crossing into the U.S. from Canada.
Secwépemc artist and fashion designer Randi Nelson traveled to Santa
Fe from the city of Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon to present
collections forged from fur and traditionally cured hides — she uses
primarily elk and caribou. The leather is tanned by hand without
chemicals using inherited techniques and tools.
“We’re all so different,” said Nelson, a member of the Bonaparte/St’uxwtéws
First Nation who started her career in jewelry assembled from
quills, shells and beads. “There’s not one pan-Indigenous theme or
pan-Indigenous look. We’re all taking from our individual nations,
our individual teachings, the things from our family, but then also
recreating them in a new and modern way.”
April Allen, an Inuk designer from the Nunatsiavut community on the
Labrador coast of Canada, presented a mesh dress of blue water
droplets. Her work delves into themes of nature and social advocacy
for access to clean drinking water.
Vocal music accompanied the collection — layers of wordless, primal
sound from musician and runway model Beatrice Deer, who is Inuit and
Mohawk.
Urban Indian couture
Phoenix-based jeweler and designer Jeremy Donavan Arviso said the
runway shows in Santa Fe are attempting to break out of the strictly
Southwest fashion mold and become a global venue for Native design
and collaboration. A panel discussion Thursday dwelled on the threat
of new tariffs and prices for fashion supplies — and tensions
between disposable fast fashion and Indigenous ideals.
Arviso is bringing a street-smart aesthetic to two shows at the
Southwestern Association for Indian Arts runway and a warehouse
venue organized by Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, from the Siksika Nation.
“My work is definitely contemporary, I don’t choose a whole lot of
ceremonial or ancestral practices in my work,” said Arviso, who is
Diné, Hopi, Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham, and grew up in
Phoenix. “I didn’t grow up like that. … I grew up on the streets.”
Arviso said his approach to fashion resembles music sampling by
early rap musicians as he draws on themes from major fashion brands
and elements of his own tribal cultures. He invited Toronto-based
ballet dancer Madison Noon for a “beautiful and biting” performance
to introduce his collection titled Vision Quest.
Santa Fe runway models will include former U.S. Interior Secretary
Deb Haaland of Laguna Pueblo, adorned with clothing from Michaels
and jewelry by Zuni Pueblo silversmith Veronica Poblano.
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