The Strange History of the Indian Trade Blanket

The Pendleton discussion continues - Previously, Adrienne Keene at Native Appropriations bloggged about it, I wrote a brief post about it, and now Slate.com has posted on the 'strange history' and the 'interesting exchanges' between Pendleton and Native nations, and now, high fashion hipsters. I don't agree with some of the author's wording, but I've re-posted the entire article below:

The Strange History of the Indian Trade Blanket
By Julia Felsenthal

(Credit: Photograph © Chris Hornbecker. Courtesy Pendleton.)

Pendleton’s New Portland Collection

I recently bought a sweater online. The designer, Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent, calls it a Navajo blanket cardigan, and I’m well aware that it’s trendy. “Navajo,” “Native American,” and “Indian” prints are everywhere. Fashion magazines like Elle and Teen Vogue have touted their now-ness. High-end designers like Vivienne Westwood and middle-range lines like William Rast have shown these prints on the runway. Even retailers like the Gap - which this past winter peddled multiple sweaters featuring a striped pattern described as Navajo - and Urban Outfitters - which currently has 27 pieces of Navajo merchandise available online - are getting in on the action.

But why are these prints suddenly so popular? And what, if anything, do these Native American or Navajo prints have to do with Native American textiles?

(Credit: Courtesy Opening Ceremony.)

Pendleton’s Collaboration With Opening Ceremony

The fashion world’s recent enthusiasm for all things Native American was kick-started by British designer Matthew Williamson’s spring 2008 show, which featured dresses, tops, and skirts beaded with fluorescent Native American motifs. From there, the trend spread to designers like Phillip Lim, Anna Sui, Isabel Marant, and Burberry. But it was in the winter of 2009 that Native American prints gained mass traction with the launch of a prominent collaboration between Pendleton - a woolen mill in Oregon that has been making wool blankets emblazoned with Native American-inspired designs for more than a hundred years - and Opening Ceremony, the envelope-pushing fashion brand and retailer. For the past three seasons, Opening Ceremony has elevated Pendleton from catalog frumpery to the fashion front lines, cutting the boldest and brightest of Pendleton fabrics into micro-minis, cropped jackets, and even (rather garish) onesies. Other companies followed suit: Pendleton fabrics have also lined and embellished Levi’s jean jackets and adorned Timberland hiking boots, as well as Vans slip-ons and high-tops. Pendleton is now getting into the game itself with its new, blatantly hipster-oriented Portland collection.

(Credit: Courtesy Pendleton Archives.)

Pendleton's Chief Joseph Print Blanket

Pendleton isn’t just a manufacturer of Native American designs: In fact, the Oregonian woolen mill played a huge role - perhaps more than any one Indian tribe - in creating these distinctive patterns. Pendleton’s early designers were instrumental in shaping modern conceptions of what Native American designs look like. They created bold and bright patterns that incorporated symbols from various tribes (as well as some non-Native American symbols), and their marketing persuaded Americans that the patterns derived directly from some authentic source. Pendleton was thus able to sell its product both on reservations - where Native Americans were attracted to Pendleton’s quality and vibrant colors - and off - where “authenticity” was a big selling point.

(Credit: Photograph by William Pennington/Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library via Library of Congress.)

A Navajo Woman With Her Sheep, Circa 1920

Of course, Native Americans were making blankets long before the Pendleton mill was founded in 1893. But those blankets were largely buffalo robes, created out of hide; only some tribes produced woven blankets, and only the Navajo produced woven woolen blankets (a fact that may account for the often inaccurate description of Pendleton-esque patterns as Navajo). The Navajo developed the craft of wool weaving in the 1500s, when the Spanish brought Churro sheep to Navajo lands. Though the Navajo were the only tribe weaving wool, according to Ann Hedlund, director of the tapestry program at the Arizona State Museum, other tribes had access to Navajo-woven wool through intertribal trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. As this weaving tradition developed, the growth of the European fur trade brought new trade items to the New World, and into the Native American economy. Among the most valuable were plain wool blankets, called Hudson Bay blankets, which were introduced in the late 1700s. These factory-made blankets became very valuable, says Bobbie Conner, director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute in Pendleton, Ore., because they were thicker, warmer, and more weather-resistant than what most Native Americans were creating at the time.

(Credit: Photograph by Lee Moorhouse. Courtesy University of Oregon Libraries.)

The Pendleton Factory Jacquard Loom During the Early 20th Century

By the late 1800s, these machine-made blankets had flooded the market, so the Navajo had fewer outlets for their textiles. And as the 19th century progressed, political pressures and stresses - including the loss of substantial populations of the Churro sheep - made it increasingly difficult for the Navajo to weave and trade their textiles to other Native American tribes. The 19th century also saw the arrival of the Jacquard loom in America. Jacquard technology made it easier for factories to produce intensely patterned and elaborately colorful blankets, in contrast to the plain Hudson Bay Blankets, which were created on less sophisticated looms.

(Credit: Courtesy Pendleton Archives.)

Designs From the 1915 Pendleton Catalog

With a Native American market for wool blankets already in place, a new ability to produce dazzlingly colored and patterned blankets in the United States, and the depletion in trade of Navajo woolen textiles, the late 19th century was an optimal moment for white-owned companies, like Pendleton, to get into what they called the “Indian trade blanket” business. At the turn of the 20th century, there were five major companies in the United States producing wool blankets for the purposes of trade with Native Americans. Although there was at least one company, Buell Manufacturing, that tried to replicate Navajo patterns exactly, most of the Indian trade blankets were not direct replicas but original designs, based in part on motifs used in Native American handicrafts—such as teepees, ceramics, parfleche, and beadwork. Incredibly bright colors were de rigueur: Conner says that when a brightly colored, patterned alternative to Hudson Bay blankets became available, Native American customers snapped them up. According to Bob Christnacht, the current manager of the Pendleton home division, to this day, when selling to trading posts and reservations, the idea is “the hotter, the brighter, the better.”

(Credit: Courtesy Pendleton Archives.)

Designs From the 1915 Pendleton Catalog

Of those five companies, Pendleton is the only one still in existence. Robert Kapoun, the author of Language of the Robe: American Indian Trade Blankets, attributes Pendleton’s longevity to its single-minded commitment to Indian trade blankets; in the company’s first decades it eschewed all other woolen goods and focused exclusively on producing these blankets.

Barry Friedman, the author of Chasing Rainbows: Collecting American Indian Trade and Camp Blankets, says that Pendleton's patterns were much more stylized than those of the other companies, and much more the product of a single man's imagination. That man was Joseph Rawnsley, an Englishman who studied at the prestigious Philadelphia Textile School; Pendleton hired him in 1901 to operate its Jacquard loom. Rawnsley's blanket designs emerged out of his travels to various reservations in the north- and southwest, where he went to live for months at a time on research trips. According to Christnacht, Rawnsley cobbled together elements that he saw in everyday life on the reservation, sometimes mixing symbols from different tribes in a single design. Rawnsley’s blankets incorporated not only Native American motifs, but also European and Oriental geometric elements. "Early Pendleton ads intimate that Indians were part of the design of the blankets," Friedman says. "But it was sort of what white people thought looked Indian."

(Credit: Photograph by Lee Moorhouse. Courtesy University of Oregon Libraries.)

A Cayuse Man Wearing a Pendleton Blanket

It’s surprising that Native Americans would so wholeheartedly adopt a white, factory-made product that copied, and distorted, Native designs—especially during a period of major conflict with white America. But that’s exactly what happened in the case of Pendleton blankets. According to Hedlund, Native Americans may have been attracted to Pendleton blankets not because they were familiar, and bastardized, but because they were exotic and new. And though Pendletons - durable, warm, and weather-resistant - certainly served a practical purpose, they quickly began to take on spiritual and ceremonial importance. Pendletons became a symbol of honor and respect, and the giving of a Pendleton blanket still accompanies many important occasions in Native American life. According to Kapoun, even today, Native American babies of many different tribes who are born on reservations are swaddled in Pendleton blankets. Conner says of her people, the Umatilla: “when people have a ceremony, a wedding, a memorial, a burial, a birth - there will always be Pendletons present. In our lives they are precious.”

(Credit: Photograph by Lee Moorhouse. Courtesy University of Oregon Libraries.)

A Photograph Staged in the Pendleton Factory

Though these blankets were conceived with Native American customers in mind, companies quickly began marketing them to white clients as well - an endeavor that depended on establishing the blankets as “authentically” Native American. (This early 20th-century Lee Moorhouse photograph of a Native American man posing in the Pendleton factory may have been taken as a promotional picture to strengthen that association.) Just as Indian trade blankets were becoming standard on the reservation, white America’s fascination with Native American handicrafts was reaching fever pitch. The Arts and Crafts movement, popular at the time, idealized the authentic and the handmade. One decorative notion was that of the Indian room, or cozy corner - basically a space in the house where one could escape corporate and industrial corruption by surrounding oneself with Native American textiles and handicrafts.

(Credit: Courtesy the Farmington Museum Collection.)

A Navajo Rug, Circa 1900

The rise of the notion of the cozy corner proved fortuitous for Native American artisans, too. Enterprising traders saw a new niche they could ask Navajo weavers in their territories to fill: a market for Navajo rugs. Traders encouraged the Navajo to begin rug weaving (which they had never done), by showing them examples of Middle Eastern rugs for inspiration; the result was that the Navajo began to incorporate some of those Middle Eastern motifs into their new, unprecedentedly thick textiles. So as white Americans were making blankets that were supposed to look authentically Native American for a largely Native American market, Native Americans were making textiles tailored to white use for white people.

(Credit: Image from 1915 Pendleton catalog. Courtesy Pendleton Archives.)

A “Cozy Corner”

A 1915 Pendleton catalog describes possible uses of Pendleton blankets in non-Indian homes: “A ‘Den,’ ‘Cozy Corner’ or ‘Indian Corner’ is not complete without one or more Indian Robes, which are made in such a wide range of colors that any carpet or drapery can be perfectly matched.” At the same time, the catalog also emphasizes the supposed authenticity of its product: “Pendleton Indian Robes are made in more than a score of different designs, every one of which is a true Indian pattern, original and unique in conception.” As Kapoun points out in Language of the Robe, Pendleton’s early advertising “somewhat exaggerated” the connection between Pendleton and the nearby tribe of Umatilla Indians, in order to establish a sense of legitimacy. A sort of origin myth printed at the front of this particular catalog reads, falsely, that, “The Indian could bring in his favorite designs [to the factory] and have them woven into a fleecy robe of gorgeous hue.”

(Credit: A painting, based on a Lee Moorhouse photograph, from the 1915 Pendleton catalog. Courtesy Pendleton Archives.)

A Painting Based on Pendleton Designs

Pendleton blankets represent a complicated alchemy of white industrialists’ ideas of Indian-ness, combined with actual Native American market preferences. Pendleton’s Christnacht points out that the company’s practice of merging symbols from multiple tribes into a single design wasn’t so unusual, given that various tribes of Native Americans were trading widely among themselves prior to Pendleton’s founding. Conner agrees that any appropriation, influence, or even theft, went in both directions: “There are people who feel like they stole our designs, but we did the same thing when the French trappers and traders came here. We appropriated the fleur-de-lis. If mimicry is a form of flattery, I would say that the Pendleton woolen mill flatters us by using designs that we take responsibility for originating.” What we think of as authentic Navajo weavings are also a mishmash of styles and influences, as Hedlund notes: Navajo weaving emerged from an earlier Pueblo weaving tradition. And the Navajo wove textiles from Spanish wool, using Mexican dyes, influenced by Anglo-American quilt patterns, and later, by Middle Eastern rugs.

(Credit: Photograph of Monica Yazzie from the Navajo Cowboys series. Courtesy Brad Bunyea.)

Levis Workwear by Pendleton

These days, Pendleton is generally very careful to refer to its designs as Native American-inspired—though in its announcement of the fall 2011 collaboration with Opening Ceremony, Pendleton refers to its own “beautiful Native American fabrics.” And in its Collaborations blog, Levi’s plays into the conversation about authenticity—by referring to “the authentic wool jacquard fabrics of Pendleton”—and reinforces the Navajo association in a series of blog posts called “The Navajo Cowboys,” featuring young Navajo riders wearing the Levi’s/Pendleton line.

Christnacht says there’s no tension between the arm of the company that still creates Indian trade blankets and the arm of the company that arranges collaborations with fashion brands. “We take a lot of our Indian designs, and we’ll keep the same basic designs, but we’ll change the coloration,” he says, “with the thought that one will be a reservation design, one will be a couture design, and one will be a mainstream American design.” Christnacht doesn’t think the collaborations can shake the community’s commitment to Pendleton. “We’re already the gold standard down on the reservation, so I don’t think that a Levi’s collaboration will change the perception of Pendleton in the Native American community.”

(Credit: Courtesy Pendleton.)

The Pendleton Collaboration With Opening Ceremony

But others are not so sure about Pendleton’s new direction. In a post on the blog, Native Appropriations, writer Adrienne K., whose heritage is Cherokee, takes a more contentious view of Pendleton’s recent emergence as a high-fashion brand. “Seeing hipsters march down the street in Pendleton clothes, seeing these bloggers ooh and ahh over how ‘cute’ these designs are, and seeing non-Native models all wrapped up in Pendleton blankets makes me upset,” she writes. “It’s a complicated feeling, because I feel ownership over these designs as a Native person, but on a rational level I realize that they aren’t necessarily ours to claim.”

Her objection comes down to expense as well; Pendleton’s collaborations and its new line are priced for the fashion market, placing these designs out of reach for the Native communities for whom Pendleton blankets were first intended. And Kapoun has noticed that the cost of a regular Pendleton Indian-style blanket, which now sells for around $200, may have become prohibitive for some Native Americans. He‘s seen Native Americans where he lives in Santa Fe, N.M., using cheaper, acrylic blankets from big box stores like Walmart, rather than Pendletons. But Conner maintains that when Native Americans have a ceremony, a wedding, a memorial, a burial, or a birth, there will always be Pendletons present. “They might use a bunch of polar fleece blankets,” she says. “We can’t afford to do all Pendletons, but the people we care the most about get the Pendleton vest, the Pendleton blanket.”

(Credit: Photograph © Chris Hornbecker. Courtesy Pendleton.)

Pendleton’s Portland Collection

As for the high-fashion collaborations, Conner sees those as an extension of a Native American tradition, as well: “We cut up Pendleton blankets, and use them for whatever we need,” she says. “The reason the Pendleton home store cuts up that fabric by the bolt and makes jackets, is because we used to do that. In our culture, if you kill a deer or an elk, you use everything: the hooves, horns, brain. Scraps from the woolen mill: same exact philosophy. When the Pendleton home store launched with the tote bags and the jackets, they were just catching up with us, from my perspective.”

Click here to read the interesting reader comments and feedback

Roosters, Fishermen, Celebrities and Salons: The Feather Extensions Trend

A most interesting trend has been sweeping the nation since the start of the year.

Thanks to celebrities like Ke$ha and Miley Cyrus, feathers are fluttering into young women's hair as part of a hot new accessory trend. Colorful and earth-toned bird feathers are woven into hair to create a hippy-meets-Native-American-meets-funky-rocker look.

Just how rooster feathers became such a rage is a bit hard to explain. It could be coming from the 'exotic' tribal trend. It could be inspired by Native American traditional headdresses. It could also be influenced by Steven Tyler, who sits on this year's "American Idol" judges panel and dons feathers daily.


Whatever the source, the trend has taken off across the nation.

Many of the feathers are being supplied by an unlikely source for fashion: Fishing bait shops. Long rooster feathers used by fly fishermen to bait salmon or trout are ideal for weaving into hair.

"It just became a wild thing," said Mark Dingler, who owns The Angler's Choice Tackle Shop fishing store in Capitola. "It's a great way to sell feathers. I'm getting phone calls from all over California and other states." The trend has grown so fast that fishing shops are having a tough time keeping their best rooster feathers in stock.

As recently as the first week of June, ABC news reported angst vocalized by fishermen, who suddenly couldn't order a popular feather for fly-fishing. The fancy rooster tails, boasting highly-patterned colors, are ideal lures. They were suddenly on back-order due to orders placed by hair salons. The most popular rooster feathers are long and thin, very straight and come in vibrant colors and shades.

In salons, higher demand for feathers translated to higher prices. "As more people have gotten into the trend, they have been getting very expensive. It was $35 in the beginning," Monterey salon hairstylist Amy Paz said. Now, "Some people have paid $500."

At the Gathering of Nations powwow in April, one vendor noted that her feathered earring business was at risk - she wouldn't be able to sell her earrings at the $30-40 price range much longer. All of the hair salons were buying up the supplies, she said, and driving up the price.

Higher demands also have other repercussions like ethical (or, more likely, unethical) treatment of birds. Some salons only buy from farms where the feathers are collected after they’ve been naturally molted. But the sudden surge in the popularity of the feather extension trend means that the majority of the feathers we see were probably not harvested ethically.

The feathers are not easy to come by in the first place.

They come from roosters that are genetically bred and raised for their plumage. In most cases, the birds do not survive the plucking.

(Above: Tom Whiting, a poultry geneticist with a Ph.D. in his field, has developed several strains and color variets of these colorful roosters that produce the finest fly-tying feathers in the business.)

At Whiting Farms, Inc., in western Colorado, one of the world's largest producers of fly-tying feathers, the roosters live about a year while their saddle feathers - the ones on the bird's backside and the most popular for hair extensions - grow as long as possible. Then the animal is euthanized. Whiting Farms is harvesting over a thousand birds a week as it tries to meet the aggressive demands of salon owners and stylists, as well as its classic fly fishing clientele.

At any rate, it seems both PETA supporters and your average fisherman can't wait for this trend to be over.

Read the original articles here, here and here.

Suzy Menkes and the 'S-Word'

(Indian Princess Diana, wearing her necklace as a headband, "like a squaw")

Yikes stripes:  The fashion industry has just taken a huge step backwards.  Check out this article by Wendy Brandes (posted on the Huffington Post and reprinted below) critiquing an article written by the well-known and well-respected fashion critic Suzy Menkes. Menkes nonchalantly busts out the controversial S-word (Squaw) when describing Princess Diana's decision to wear a necklace as a headband.

Oooh, tsk tsk Menkes, what a faux pas!  Girl, get your Indian stereotypes right: Princess Diana was rockin' the 'Indian Princess' look, not the 'Squaw/drudge' look. 

Interestingly (or not), on the very day that this article landed, we were discussing stereotypes in my class (on Native American Adornment - a fun class, I love my critical students!).  Those same old (really old, like 500-year-old) stereotypes just keep popping up and continue to influence the fashion scene today.

The fashion industry is one of the main culprits perpetuating Native stereotypes.  Case in point: Menkes lets us know that Diana 'took the stuffing out' of an heirloom emerald necklace (read: brought it down from the high society of royalty to the lower rungs) by wearing it as a headband like a squaw.  Infuriating.  Menkes could have just said, "She wore the necklace like a headband," but, no.

So, I wonder, if Menkes can mess up this big (and fly under the radar, as Brandes notes), then how much respect can we expect from the fashion industry (especially as it relates to non-Native people using Native cultural references in fashion)?  Is it a lost cause?  (i.e. Us: "Menkes! That's not nice!", Menkes: "meh.  whatevs").

In the world of fashion, can critics and fashion reviewers make blatantly derogatory statements about Native people and get away with it?  We know that the fashion industry is all about tribal influences right now - designers and buyers love it, they consume it, and they claim to respect it, but do they really?  Can fashion serve as a jump-off point for cross-cultural education?

Maybe not everyone will see this as a battle to pick; but, coming from the perspective of a 'scholar' of fashion, I respected Menkes, and I'm disappointed in her selection of words and references. Like Brandes, I agree that Menkes uses the term squaw "that in no way sounds like a compliment," and I believe that things like this shouldn't fly under our radar so easily.

Here is Brandes article:

The Fashion Writer and the Other 'S-Word'
Posted: 04/11/11 on Huffington Post
By Wendy Brandes

Christian Dior designer John Galliano's career imploded in February, when accusations that he made anti-Semitic remarks were followed by a video showing Galliano slurring, "I love Hitler." While the fashion industry was focused on that, an unfortunate aside from one of my favorite fashion writers, the venerable Suzy Menkes of the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune, flew under the radar. In "Off With Her Headpiece," an article published in The New York Times's T Magazine about the jewels that Kate Middleton might wear to her wedding to England's Prince William, Menkes wrote (bold emphasis is mine):

Then there is a cabochon emerald collar that the stately Queen Mary (Queen Elizabeth' s grandmother) made from her family emeralds... Diana took the stuffing out of that piece by wearing it around her head like a squaw on a tour of Australia in 1985.

This came to my attention via Jennine Jacob, a fashion blogger of Native American descent, who was upset by the use of the word "squaw." A number of people who commented on the article online were also angry. One wrote, "The word 'squaw' is racist, offensive, and insulting on so many levels that I can't believe anyone in the 21st century would use it...." A day after the article appeared online, the editors of T Magazine replied in the comments: "Dear readers: We understand the sensitivity and wish that we had chosen different words. No offense was intended."

I was curious about whether Menkes's use of the word was considered appropriate by experts on Native Americans. As it turns out, those experts disagree on the original meaning of "squaw," but they all agree that the word is now seen as offensive. Suzan Shown Harjo -- a Native American poet, writer, lecturer, curator and policy advocate -- has argued for decades that what she calls the "s-word" originally meant "vagina," and is therefore a slur. When she made that argument in a 1992 appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show, it had broad impact.

Ives Goddard, now senior linguist emeritus at the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology, has always disputed Harjo's translation, saying the word "squaw" derives "from an innocent term for woman." Despite the harmless origin, he notes, "This word is now generally considered offensive and is so labeled in all current dictionaries of English."

Anthropologist Margaret Bruchac, like Goddard, believes the word originally had a benign meaning. As a result, she has argued that "squaw" should be rehabilitated from its "dirty word" status. "This labeling of my indigenous language as obscene is a racist statement," she wrote in 1999. "It makes no sense for Native people to cling to and accept a wrong translation."

Nevertheless, the consensus is that the word, regardless of origin, is an insult in today's usage. Some states have even changed place names to remove "squaw" references. So I asked the New York Times why its editors didn't change the online version of the story. Suzy Menkes wasn't available for comment, but Arthur Brisbane, the public editor for the Times, said:

I understand your and others' concern about the use of the word "squaw." The Times, though, doesn't retroactively change the content of its stories. The obvious exception is in the case of corrected errors. In the case of word choice, such changes are not made retroactively. The policy reflects The Times's view that it creates a record with its contents and it should not attempt to change that record, after the fact.

That made me wonder if Menkes's use of squaw was factually correct. Did Native American women usually wear headbands? It is difficult to generalize. Tara Prindle Block, the author/developer of NativeTech.org, which focuses on the arts and technology of Eastern Woodland Indian Peoples, says of tribes in what is now southern New England: "It is true, and is documentable both historically and prehistorically, for Native American women of many tribes to wear woven bands around their heads."

But Mary Spanos, a textile anthropologist who specializes in the people of the Southeast, says headbands weren't worn in that region. She also said, "There were many, many groups of native peoples populating North America before the Europeans arrived and they were all quite different."

Bottom line: Suzy Menkes's comparison of Diana's fashion choice to that of a "squaw" was not only hurtful but seems to have been a bit of a stretch in terms of accuracy. And no analogy of any kind was was needed to explain the style to readers. Menkes simply could have said that Diana wore a necklace as a headband. Instead, she makes a reference that in no way sounds like a compliment -- more like a sneer. And that strikes me as sad.

Vogue's Indians

Well well well, Vogue editors throughout the world are tapping into the ol' "Wild West Indians" theme for their latest issues.  Instead of working with Native American fashion designers and models, the editors decided to go with non-Native versions. Shocker, I know. Maybe this is because the non-Native Indians are more Indian than the real Indians?

Giddy up!: The March 2011 issue of Vogue Russia shows us their version of Southwest Fashion that borrows heavily from Native themes such as fringe, leather, Navajo blanket patterns, and long braids:

And the April 2011 of Vogue Spain shows us their version of 'algo salvaje' (something wild) - a photospread that includes a headdress, squash blossom bracelet, fringe, and some other crap:

Forever 21 Goes Native

Forever 21 picked up on the Native American trend spotted on the runways and has made their signature 'affordable' versions.

Native-Inspired Collections at Paris Fashion Week

This is a little bit late (delayed, of course, by my preoccupation with the Heard Market) - but I wanted to round out my review of Native-inspired collections at the various Fashion Week events held in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. A couple of the designers at Paris Fashion Week showed collections with Native American influence. I'm still reviewing the collections from MFW and PFW, but read on for a list of some of the shows that drew inspiration from Native sources.

Isabel Marant
About her RTW Fall 2011 collection, WWD wrote: "Her Native American riffs, meanwhile, were best in the watercolor feather prints on casual basics (slouchy sweatshirts and Ts) and the seemingly inside-out Navajo-pattern knits rendered slightly undone with loose, trailing strands. But that fringe motif didn’t work so well when it came to everything else. Marant had the stringy stuff cascading down suede tunics, tight-knit dresses and on the side of slouchy boots. It was too literal a gimmick and only boosted the somewhat haphazard vibe throughout." Click here and here for more information.



Hermes
In his debut collection for Hermes, Christophe Lemaire went slightly Native American: hooded, suede ponchos and dresses featuring dream-catcher prints in a palette of rich sepias, ochres, ecrus and taupes. Click here for more information.

Native-Inspired Collections at London Fashion Week

Following New York Fashion Week (held Feb 10-17), the designers at London Fashion Week (held Feb 18-23) also showed collections with Native American influence. Fashionistas have already migrated over to Milan where Italian designers are currently showing their latest Fall/Winter 2011 collections (Feb 23-Mar 1), and the grand finale will be held in Paris, per usual (Mar 1-9). So expect my 'Native' updates about those events within the next two weeks. The reviews from LFW are still coming in, but read on for a list of some of the shows that drew inspiration from Native sources.

Elliot Atkinson for Fashion East
• Elliot Atkinson's LFW debut featured a collection charting "Americana through the ages" which referenced everything from "ritualistic body piercing, Native American culture and the Scottish Highlands." First up were Native American inspired black woven embossed snakeskin trousers and mini shift dresses embellished with feathers. Click here to read more.



Matthew Williamson
• Williamson has consistently incorporated Native elements into his collections, and his latest line is no exception. "Hailing prints found in Red Indian tribes, the British designer’s latest offering had an ethnic-inspired feel that bonds well with his boho aesthetic and use of statement colour." Click here to read more.

Native-Inspired Collections at New York Fashion Week

New York Fashion Week wrapped up this past weekend, and there were several Native-inspired collections presented on the runways. Below is a short list of the collections that demonstrated Native American themes.


ADAM
• This line was inspired by a recent trip to New York’s National Museum of the American Indian. Head designer Adam Lippes said, "I have long felt the American Indian culture to be one of the most beautiful and I walked away from this visit inspired." For more info, click here .

Rag & Bone
• The brand's new collection borrowed from "Eskimos, Inuits, Native Americans and Siberians" — with a few '70s skiers thrown in. For more info, click here.

Cushnie et Ochs
• This collection featured leather, fringe, feathers, and other Native American influences. A road trip from LA to Vegas inspired Carly and Michelle, the designer duo behind Cushnie et Ochs, to bring some fringe and feathers to their Fall collection. Metro.us asked the designers at Cushnie et Ochs, "What was your inspiration for fall?" and they responded: "The collection became about Western travel — like a sultry, sexy vagabond traveling around. We looked at Native American silhouettes also, so it was kinda that mixed together. It was taking some of the Native American references, like the elastic boning and the fringes, and cleaning them up." For more info, click here or here or here or here.



Diane von Furstenberg
• Three icons of old-school style and allure were muse choices for Diane von Furstenberg's 'American Legend'-themed show for Fall 2011, and one of them included Millicent Rogers - a grand Standard Oil dame who had a thing for Native American and Rodeo wear. For more info, click here.

Rodarte
• Nicholas Kirkwood for Rodarte booties drew on a Native theme, with beaded crystal patterns clearly inspired by Native American designs. For more info, click here.

Band of Outsiders
• The Band of Outsiders show evoked university graduates in college scarves, Native American-inspired graphic cardigans and wool blanket coats. For more info, click here or here.

Proenza Schouler
• Proenza Schouler goes into the West. Head designers Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough were inspired by a road trip across the “Wild West,” from Santa Fe to Wyoming, where they collected Native American blankets and textiles. The geometric patterns and other objects were scanned, then manipulated on a computer and turned into wool jacquards. For more info, click here or here or here.





Sophie Theallet
• Sophie Theallet said that the grace and strength that is apparent in the lifestyle of Native Americans inspired this latest collection. In the developing stages of this collection, she said she spent considerable time at a Canadian reserve (though she doesn't say which one) to inspect the elements of Native clothes from close quarters. She said that the beauty and grace apparent in the clothes of these people deeply touched her heart. For more info, click here.

Siki Im Fashion Collab with Navajo Weaver Tahnibaa Naataanii

New York Fashion Week is in full swing, and already several Native-inspired collections have popped up. However, one designer, Siki Im, is stepping it up with his latest line in which he collaborated with an award-winning Native artist.

Much of the clothing featured in Siki Im's fourth collection, Silent Thunderbird Prayer, were inspired by Native American cultures, and the designer collaborated with acclaimed Navajo weaver Tahnibaa Naataanii to create the hand woven blankets worn in the show. Furthermore, the architectural details and creative silhouettes were inspired by the work of Pueblo pottery artist Maria Martinez.

Siki Im told Dazed Digital, "The beautiful thing about [Maria Martinez's] work was that is very much about the silhouette of the ceramics. She didn't use much colour so shape and texture was central to her work. She created these almost perfect round shapes and charcoal engravings. This season, I didn't want it to be conceptual and instead focused on creating beautiful silhouettes."

Fur-covered braids, heavy-lidded eye makeup, live hand-drumming, and a dirt runway added to the Indigenous vibe.

I haven't had a chance to look deeper into this collaboration - but I like the fact that Siki Im partnered with a notable Native artist and gives her credit. In addition, he clearly states that his inspiration for the silhouettes derives from the revolutionary pottery designs of Maria Martinez. Whereas many non-Native designers use a generic sense of 'Indianness,' Siki Im is specific about his inspiration points, and he names them.

To read more reviews of the collection, click these links:

Siki Im's Silent Thunderbird Prayer

Back to the Land

Siki Im Fall 2011 Preview | Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

Siki Im

Siki Im Menswear A/W11: The New Yorker's fourth collection entitled Silent Thunderbird Prayer offers a return to Mother Earth

Some History | Fringe

As with most 'histories,' this history on fringe begins with European/Americans and their adoption of this form of embellishment - though several Native groups have used various forms of fringe on their garments for hundreds of years. Nonetheless, this is an interesting overview of the use of fringe in fashion for the past 100 years, written and published on the Vogue Blog site.


During the 1920s, one of the most popular dances, the Charleston, lent its name to a dress completely covered in fringe, that would move and shake along with the body's movement, revealing the legs. These embroidered or shawled dress invaded all of high society throughout America and Europe.

These were the Fitzgerald years, and many of the period's actresses wore these kinds of dresses in either short or long versions. From Gertrude Lawrence and Olive Borden in 1925-27 to Joan Crawford in a white dress with fringes at the sleeves and around her whole body in 1932, to Claudette Colbert in a long cocktail dress in 1935.

The designers of the era were Worth, who in 1927 made a dress entirely of fringes of silvery tinsel, and Vionnet who created dresses with large floral designs and long fringe in 1924.



In the '50s, Elvis Presley adopted fringe as his uniform with his famous leather jackets, creating an army of worldwide followers. In that same period (late '40s and early '50s) the Hell's Angels movement adopted the fringed look with jackets and gloves while riding their Harley Davidsons.

In 1952, Rita Hayworth, captured attention with a fringed dress entirely embroidered in sequins, and two years earlier the costume designer Gilbert Adrian had created a dress made exclusively from fringe for another star. This was the trend for elegant and sensual divas. The last designer to treat fringe with diva-esque allure was Valentino in the '60s, with a red poncho featuring long fringe worn over trousers.

Already in '60s, however, fringe began to take on Native American influence. Yves Saint Laurent was inspired by Africa and in 1967 created two African dresses with straw fringe on mesh dresses with embroidery in wood and beads, and then revisited the fringe theme in the same year for a mink coat. Twiggy, Jane Shrimpton, Penelope Tree, Sonny Bono and Cher, all frequently wore jackets and dresses in suede with fringe with an American Indian feel. It became Cher's style, who for a period wore fringe for both day and evening wear.

In the '70s, fringe increasingly appeared in fashion magazines and were photographed by the likes of Lichfield, Bert Stern, David Bailey and Richard Avedon, as well as Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Barry Lattegan.





Then when the Hippy movement took off in the 1970s, suede and fringe were everywhere, especially in places like Biba on Carnaby Street, and became more and more decorated. Bill Gibb invented gypsy dresses and patchwork with fringe, while Martine Gruber created the first fringed and hooded ponchos. Twiggy herself had Bill Gibb create embroidered suede trousers and jackets with fringe for her debut at the Royal Festival Hall Concert in 1976.

Still in the '70s, Jacques Cassia made his name with a two-piece outfit with a fringed vinyl skirt and a knotted aluminum brassiere. The trend contaminated into the music scene, with figures like Ringo Starr with his wife Maureen Cox and Tina Turner at a concert at New York City's Felt Forum, dressed in a mini-dress by lori Lazaar.




In 1980 Stephen Sprouse launched knitwear with fringe, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo created wide, colorful chiffon dresses with fabric strips forming fringe, and Claude Montana worked a lot with leather embroidered with studs and fringe. In the same period, Ralph Lauren became known for skirts, trousers, jackets, long coats and suede dresses - all with fringe.

In 1987 Azzedine Alaia designed a beaded fringe dress for Tina Turner. She was photographed by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Italia and Vogue America. Two years later
Christian Lacroix made an sculpture-dress, creating the jackets with embroidery and fringe like drapery cords and trousers made exclusively of corded fringe.

Giorgio Armani, at the end of the '80s, sent models down the runways with embroidered, patterned, long-fringed shawls, as well as fringed evening dresses. In 1990, Dolce & Gabbana created a long skirt and top embroidered with crystals forming short fringe. It was worn by Linda Evangelista and photographed by Steven Meisel.





From the mid-90s, Jean Paul Gaultier created entire collections with a fringe theme, both for dresses and leather coats. In the same period, John Galliano dedicated an entire collection to Squaws and then to China, always with the use of fringe - although with different origins.


In the Spring of 2007, fringe became ubiquitous, this time with a cowgirl connotation. Prada proposed a short tunic made entirely of fringe, along with coats, clutches and bags. It became the trend of the season: in that same year, Roberto Cavalli sent down the runway a dress made with glass bead fringe. And after only three years, he then re-proposed an entirely fringed collection.

Impossible to extinguish, fringe will always come back. In one way or another.

Franca Sozzani
Illustrations by Sara Ruggiero