Designer Profile | Remonia Jacobsen

Growing up in Oklahoma, Remonia Jacobsen (Otoe/Iowa) attended several public schools as well as the Pawnee and Chilocco Indian Schools. Jacobsen started sewing at a young age, and defined herself as ‘self-taught,’ improving her skills in design over the years. One of the main vehicles for Jacobsen’s fashion design self-apprenticeship was to create her daughters’ powwow dance outfits.

After moving from Oklahoma to Colorado in the mid-1970s, Jacobsen became increasingly interested in pursuing fashion design as a career and decided to develop her own fashion business. She pursued certificates in small business development and management, and began presenting her work through fashion shows, event lectures, and television programs in the 1970s. For over two years, Jacobsen participated in a television special, on channel KKTV in Colorado Springs, devoted to broadcasting programs on Indian culture. Largely motivated by the desire to share her culture with others for educational purposes, Jacobsen built a successful company and imparted to others the dynamic nature of Indian innovation through her numerous programs and presentations.

Jacobsen was also involved in civic and Indian affairs, participating in a number of community activities. She co-founded one of the area’s Inter-tribal Indian Clubs, and served on a number of advisory councils for alcoholism, affirmative action, human relations, and Native American issues. Jacobsen was active in the powwow scene, and assisted with organizing and hosting the local powwows in Colorado. She noted that female members of her family were bestowed the honor of wearing traditional Kiowa dresses and Jicarilla Apache dresses at tribal events, even though they were Otoe/Iowa. She created these outfits, and thus became well-versed in a variety of different tribal traditional garment-making techniques and styles. She distributed her fashion designs through outlets in New York, Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington state. Her clients included renowned Santa Clara potters Joseph Lonewolf and Grace Medicine Flower.

About Native fashion, Jacobsen stated, “Indian fashion is very much alive and real today. Both the Indian person and the non-Indian person are keenly aware of the Indian concepts of simplicity, durability, versatility and beauty shown in the fashion. I try to relay these concepts in the fashions I design. Using a traditional theme, I develop a fashion for today.”

Her first sentence marked Native fashion as dynamic and authentic. Perhaps responding to the trendy Natural Style of the 1970s, she connected her fashion to the then-favorable attributes of being both down-to-earth and back-to-earth. Jacobsen both played on and challenged the stereotypes of Indians as being close with nature.

The majority of Jacobsen’s garments were long loose-fitting dresses featuring Sioux, Otoe, Iowa, Seminole, Kiowa, and Pueblo designs, decorative techniques, and silhouettes. She also created a long dress with a halter top and stole embroidered with Otoe and Iowa style ribbon-work, a floor-length skirt and blouse adorned with Seminole appliqué, and a buckskin miniskirt with contemporary Kiowa leggings. She made a wedding dress and bridesmaid’s dress with designs inspired by an old photograph of her grandmother’s wedding, and incorporated traditional Otoe ribbon-work. She also created a floor-length manta-style dress with a thin strip of ribbon-work along the top, and a bikini bathing suit with wrap-around skirt decorated with Seminole-style patchwork. By the late 1970s, Gilham and Jacobsen demonstrated how Native women could take fashion in new directions, while still retaining their essential identity symbols.

Native American fashion designers in the 1970s were predominantly, if not entirely, women. These designers created appliqué dresses, ribbon shirts, and vests for Native and non-Native men and women. Gilham sold her work at professional conferences, and held community fashion shows that were made possible through the assistance of her family. Jacobsen participated in powwows and worked with advocacy groups. Being active in community organizations, the designers were aware of a new client: the active Native female advocate, which was essentially themselves.

To Jacobsen and other Native designers at this time, beauty meant wearing garments that were feminine (a dress), yet not too constricting in construction (loose-fitting), and decorated with embellishments that would relay a proud tribal or pan-Indian identity. A miniskirt made of buckskin was also an option for the younger females who wanted to wear a dress featuring the new liberating skirt length, yet would also express their Native American affiliation.

(Note: This is an excerpt from my dissertation and is copyrighted material)





(All images are scanned from a brochure featuring Jacobsen's Monkapeme Fashions, produced by Southern Plains Indian Museum and Crafts Center)

Some History | Ribbon Work and Ribbon Shirts

(Penny Singer updates the ribbonshirt to put her own twist on this classic garment)

Ribbon shirts are one example of an adapting and enduring Indian garment. Many contemporary Native American fashion designers incorporate ribbon work into their designs or create ribbon shirts. Colored silk ribbons were first introduced by French and English traders, and were subsequently adopted into Native traditional practices, including use as decoration for ceremonial offerings. Ribbons were also appliquéd onto clothing, sometimes using a mirror-image design with ribbons of contrasting colors. Ribbons were also used where pigment would normally - the brighter colors of the ribbons was one of the reason why this material was so readily incorporated in to important regalia. Contemporary Native fashion designer Margaret Wood demonstrated how ribbonwork panels could be applied to various garments, including shirts, dresses, and skirts. Ribbon shirts for men – where the ribbons are sewn to the yoke – are now quite prevalent and have become a pan-Indian attire, worn with jeans or pants, for men at all types of special social gatherings.

Ribbon appliqué is an important art form for several different tribal groups. For those in the Great Lakes region, it has been the basis for traditional women’s regalia for more than 150 years. Even though the designs and materials have changed over time, the many clothing makers still associate ribbon appliqué as part of traditional life.

Thunderworks described the origins of the Art Form: Ribbon appliqué originated in the Great Lakes region in the late 1700s with the introduction of silk. Because silk deteriorates, there are very few samples of ribbon work prior to 1850. Its existence prior to 1850 is documented by a leather breechcloth decorated with a silk ribbon appliqué border.

An important feature of ribbon appliqué is the visual reversal of the pattern and background which changes with the shifting perception of the viewer. A pattern is cut out of paper and transferred to a ribbon of one color. The ribbon is cut and appliquéd with invisible stitches to a background panel of ribbon of another color. Two or more strips are joined and sewn to a muslin backing creating a wider panel. The panel is then applied to a garment of dark wool. Panels are used to decorate skirts, breechcloths, leggings, and blankets.

Prior to 1850, the genesis of ribbon appliqué began with patterns that were entirely geometric and repeating. The ribbons were very narrow. Several strips had to be combined to make an elaborate panel.

Beginning in 1850, the designs were still repeating but in much larger, more complicated, more varied motifs. Designs become more curvilinear, but still somewhat angular. In the 1900’s major changes occurred with the introduction of bilateral symmetry within the structure of the panels. Motifs were separated, still repeating and less angular. In 1955, the art form was characterized by large curvilinear designs and abstract floral motifs. Even more recent changes include abstract floral motifs on a solid background.