Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 37 "W E ARE SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF A NA- TIVE FASHION RENAISSANCE," PROCLAIMS KAREN KRAMER, Peabody Essex Museum's curator of Native American art and culture, at the first showcase of contemporary Native American fashion. e (Salem, Mas- sachusetts) Peabody show will travel to top museums across the country with exhibits of individuals making creative use of their heritage. No stereotypical traditional designs. Bethany Yellowtail grew up on the Crow reservation. She was part Crow, part Northern Cheyenne. She designs pieces with details that she learned from her ancestors—jewelry, blankets, dresses, hats, purses, and scarves. She had her first show at the Crow Fair but now lives in Los Angeles. Her father was a cattle rancher, her mother a nurse at a veteran's home in Madison County. She had brothers and sisters, and all of them played basketball. She was accepted and then dropped from Brooks College in California but her home economics teacher fought to get her re-admitted. While she had made patterns and sewn for years, she focused on design and color; she intended to have her own brand and have her clothes sold in department stores. She worked at Starbucks, interned at a small design company, and then got a phone call from a luxury women's brand. She spent two years there helping with pattern-making, fittings, sewers, and getting garments store-ready. She worked for more companies, studied at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in Los Angeles, all the while creating her own designs. en she found a business partner who helped her develop a plan, especially for online sales. Recently she launched a platform featuring Crow artisans and their beadwork and artwork. See her work and others at www.byellowtail.com Another design—Apsaalooke Nights dress—is based on beadwork from her great-grandmother's collection. It reveals specific shapes of the Crow people which "natives could spot a mile away," she said. Another designer made something in geometric shapes that to the untrained eye looked similar. She felt gutted, erased, just as indigenous voices had gone unheard or ignored. Indigenous designers needed to be protected. e challenge for indigenous women was and is that their original designs are stolen and repackaged by corpo- rate fashion brands at both the high and low ends. For instance, dazzling headdresses that were sacred to natives and only worn by tribal leaders, have been utilized by the public in no spiritual context. Another form of coloniza- tion. Native Americans agree that if they benefit from the stealing in some way at least that is easier to swallow. Isaac Misrahi and Ralph Lauren have done riffs of native symbols. If those designers had paid the tribes or used native workers and compensated them, that would been fairer. It's difficult to trademark a tribe's name because as with the Lakota, there are several bands within a tribe. Only the Navajo have trademarked their tribal name. Another difficulty is that tribal symbols belong to the community and the tribe is too poor to fight back. You can learn more about this problem in the sidebar or at a popular blog called Native Ap- propriations, run by a Cherokee, Harvard-educated, postdoctoral fellow at Brown named Adrienne Keene. M O N T A N A ' S N A T I V E A M E R I C A N W O M E N S M A S H T H E C O U T U R E C E I L I N G "KNOW YOUR WORTH AND YOUR VALUE, AND BE FIRM AND CLEAR ON WHAT THAT IS." Bethany Yellowtail by VALERIE HARMS

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