RETROSPECTRUM!: A Style Mixer

What would fashion history look like if Native American designers were consistently represented in mainstream style magazines, department stores and fashion shows?

How would a Hopi designer take 1960s Mod fashion to the next level? How would a Lakota designer add authenticity to '70s hippy style? How would a Navajo designer contribute to Pin-up fashion? And how would a Northwest Coast Haida designer enrich techno culture? What about a Mohawk hip-hop fly-girl stylist? That would be fashion history, to the next level.

BBB x P4

I want to introduce you guys to a totally cool new collective called Presence 4.0.

They are a group of three Navajo women (Nanibaa Beck, Jaclyn Roessel, and Chelsea Chee) who recently launched a style blog that showcases the ingenuity and creativity that Native American people utilize in styling themselves.

This website documents Native participation in fashion by featuring individuals and their expressive style on the streets (and dirt roads!).

Artist Profile | Kristen Dorsey

Beyond Buckskin is proud to introduce the fabulous Ms. Kristen Dorsey.

Dorsey is a proud member of the Chickasaw Nation. She is a silversmith artist who seeks to bring the power and beauty of ancient Southeast Native American symbols to the present through her exquisite jewelry collections.

Always an eye on the past, Dorsey brings the meanings and stories forward with each of her creations.

Frybread Style

So here's the deal. My good friend Amber-Dawn Bear Robe just moved in with my other good friend Chris Eyre. She was telling me about how she had to go through all his stuff while they were unpacking, and she kept coming across these clothes that SHE KNEW Chris would never wear again. She suggested Goodwill. He said No.

See the clothes are like memorabilia. They remind him of the good times. He'll never frolic in them again, but, good grief, he can't just throw away good times! And neither can we. Hence, the idea for a photo shoot commenced. See, we all have clothes that we just CAN'T PART WITH because they were gifts, they remind us of important times, they are us, they are our history.

At any rate, she was showing me these jackets and hats that were clearly from a different era, and all of them were bedazzled with Indianness, and I thought, "We should do a fashion shoot!"