Indigenous designers display fashions at Honor Our Legacy show

Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation saw the return of the Honor Our Legacy Fashion Show at Northern Winz Hotel and Casino Saturday night, featuring the designs and talents of numerous indigenous artists and models from across the U.S. and beyond in a event that drew enthusiastic cheers from a full house throughout the evening.

This is the seventh annual show, one that has grown year after year, just as its primary organizer, Rebekah Jarvey, has grown in prominence in the fashion industry as a leader of the growing movement to introduce Indigenous fashion to the mainstream.

Jarvey opened Saturday's show saying that many of the ideas and people she's met in the industry she has brought back to the show, which she hopes to make better and better each year.

She said the point of this show is to find identity and power within the culture and heritage of the area, and, while it may not be the best way, fashion is what she knows and its how she connects with and expresses pride in who she is and who the people of Rocky Boy are.

She said it used to be that people could immediately know what family and tribe was competing in a powwow by their colors, but that knowledge is fading and Rocky Boy needs to recapture the enthusiasm for that kind of expression.

The show began with local models competing against each other in a series of categories in which they wore more traditional Indigenous clothing and dances, followed by categories for more modern Indigenous fashion, including a category of young children.

The more traditional clothes were backed by the traditional drums and singing of Montana Cree who performed numerous songs that shook the house and drew cheers from the crowd along with the performers who danced to it.

Some of the designs that night were by local fashion designer Joshua Sosnoski of Nitêh Clothing who made an appearance on stage during the event.

After the competition came the showcase, a series of Indigenous fashion designers from across the country showing their lines of clothes with models striding the runway.

The first of these designers was Lisa Redford, who debuted a new line of clothes at the show for women and men.

Redford was introduced as a specialist in blending Indigenous flair with edgy modern looks inspired by her own heritage, including Hidatsa and Eastern Cherokee/Chickasaw.

Redford, an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota, grew up in the Seattle area where she developed an appreciation for coastal Indigenous art before moving back home and becoming a fashion designer.

The second artist was Yolanda OldDwarf a member of the Crow Tribe and creator of Sweet Sage Woman, her fashion business, named after the translation of her Crow name.

OldDwarf's introduction said she founded her business in the wake of a battle with postpartum depression and fashion is the way she expresses herself and her connection to her tribe.

Her clothes put a contemporary spin on her tribe's traditional clothing in the hopes of conveying messages of hope and empowerment.

Indeed, many of her designs shown that night displayed the red handprint, a symbol of the nation's ongoing crisis of missing a murdered Indigenous women, a group that faces violence at many times the rate of non-Indigenous women, and whose disappearances are often not taken as seriously.

These statement pieces drew especially strong reactions from the crowd, and appear to have hit their intended mark.

The last of the fashion designer trio was Sherleen Yellowhair-Jones of the Navajo Nation whose mother and aunt created vibrant dresses, sash belts, blouses and beadwork inspired by the landscape, her tribe's creation story and various aspect of their people's history and culture her introduction said.

In recent years, Yellowhair-Jones has ventured into creating traditional and contemporary clothes using velvet, cotton and satin, incorporating her tribe's designs and symbols into her clothing as she seeks to carry on her family's legacy.

Interspersed between each designer's showcase were circus acts by a pair of performers, friends of Jarvey.

The first was Stephanie Little Thunder, The Flying Brain, who preformed an acrobatics show hanging from her hair, dancing and spinning in mid air to the cheers of the crowd.

Little Thunder said her performance is personal for her as many members of her family in the past were not able to grow their hair long like she has.

She said people of previous generations of her family were sent to boarding schools, where they had their hair forcibly cut, part of these schools' efforts to destroy Indigenous culture and indoctrinate Native American children.

The other performer, Sam Malcom, did a comedy juggling performance, featuring knives, torches and lots of jokes that brought the room together in laughter and gasps of amazement as knives spun around Malcom's body.

He said this was his first time in the area and he was thrilled that Jarvey had invited him, and that the crowd was willing to put up with his occasional innuendo.

Malcom said he believes laughter is the greatest medicine and he was glad he had the opportunity to bring some to Rocky Boy.

After the fashion and circus acts the show was wrapped up with a pair of musical performances by musical artists Spur Pourier and Nataanii Means.

A hush fell over the tent as Pourier, a traditional singer, performed a set of songs, some by his family members, songs about love and heartbreak in a mix of English and Native language.

Pourier's songs were followed by the appearance of hiphop artists Nataanii Means, which turned the atmosphere of the tent from quiet and contemplative to excited as he performed a mix of old and new songs that could be heard from far outside the venue.

Means, who has been at the event multiple times now, said it was great to be back at Rocky Boy and thanked Jarvey and the community for continuing to welcome him back.