Fashion HEAT | David Gaussoin

Several established and cutting-edge Native American fashion designers showed in Santa Fe at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts during the Santa Fe Indian Market. Organized by First Nations art curator Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, the event was a huge hit and a 2013 round 2 is in the works.

The show started with designs (see left) selected and organized by award-wining artist Connie Tsosie Gaussoin, which highlighted how modern Native fashion has been around for a while, but it also shows how the Gaussoin family has played such an important role as a mainstay in thinking about Native clothing in an avant-garde way. I caught up with Connie's son, David Gaussoin, who is also an award-winning artist, and asked him a couple of questions about his family's participation in the Fashion HEAT event.

Fashion HEAT | Consuelo Pascual

I got the great opportunity to interview Navajo/Mayan fashion designer Consuelo Pascual about her newest designs that debuted at the Fashion HEAT show held in Santa Fe during Indian Market.

Organized by Native American and First Nations art scholar and curator Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, this free event was one of the most-talked about Native-focused fashion shows of the past year and featured some of the most prominent Native American fashion designers producing today.

In the interview below, Pascual talks to BB about the ins and outs of fashion design: from the structural to the ephemeral, fashion is an exciting art form, and is one that is gaining a better footing in the American Indian art world.

Orlando Dugi Talks Fashion HEAT

I caught up with Navajo jewelry and fashion designer Orlando Dugi to chat about the recent Fashion HEAT show that was held at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts during the Santa Fe Indian Market. Organized by contemporary Native American and First Nations art scholar and curator Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, the fashion show was one of the most talked about events during the weekend. The show featured some of Native America's topnotch fashion designers, and there's already talk about planning for Fashion HEAT 2013 (that's what I like to hear!).

Dugi is one of my personal favorite designers because he is constantly pushing himself and creating new items to show off. I remember when I first met him during the Heard Indian Market, and it was then that he said he's starting to dabble in fashion design.

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!"