Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV, at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, and viewers like you.

Amber-Dawn Bear Robe spotlights Indigenous designers at the 2024 SWAIA Native Fashion Week and shares her vision for the industry's future.

Megan Wimberly challenges outdated notions of the "cowgirl" while championing female Western artists.

Thankful, finding her happy place, Helen Taylor transforms self-doubt into joy while using her artwork to inspire and uplift others.

It's all ahead on ¡COLORES!

>>Indigenous Fashion.

[Music] >> Faith: So Amber, Vegas, I'm so happy to have you back on Colores.

Thank you for coming.

What was your vision for the 2024 SWAIA Native Fashion Week?

>> Amber: Well, my long-term vision is to really put Santa Fe on the map as a fashion city and to also expand the platform for Indigenous designers and models in the fashion industry.

So, it really is about the longevity and growing Indigenous fashion in an industry that really doesn't have space for them right now.

>>Faith: Can you tell me what were some standout pieces or designs that really resonated with you?

>>Amber: There was many highlights to Native Fashion Week last year.

[Music] >>Amber: One of the biggest highlights was Caroline Monnet.

She is based in Eastern Canada, I think Montreal.

I've actually known her for decades, and I've worked with her as a visual artist.

She's a very well known internationally acclaimed visual artist, but she works with unconventional materials, and I reached out to her to ask her if she would create a capsule collection for the runway.

So this was about two years in the making and the collection that she made for the runway was phenomenal.

She had this pink insulation puffy suit.

She had, her garments were made out of building, house building materials.

And when you look at it, it's amazing what she has done to transform these building materials that are behind the drywall or underneath the wood and transform this into this beautiful, visually stunning, but also conceptually grounding, important work.

You also have Pamela Baker.

She's from the Pacific Northwest Coast and she uses a lot of form line design.

And you don't see form line design a lot in the Southwest because it is a very specific northwest coast design language with ovids and U-forms.

And there's a lot of history and culture and story and dialogue with Pacific Northwest Coast form line.

And so she's reinventing how to display form line design in a very couture, sexy, phenomenal, feminine way.

Another one was Maria Hupfield.

She, again, is a visual artist who works with a lot of felts and textiles and she created this beautiful, interactive, performative capsule collection which then became part of a gallery exhibition installation in Toronto, Canada.

Then you also have the collection of Carrie Wood of Chizhii, and actually I'm wearing Carrie Wood right now, and her collection was just stunning.

And she lives locally in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And then we had designers from across Canada, including Lesley Hampton from Toronto.

And just everybody brought just their A game to the fashion table.

It was just a phenomenal, phenomenal experience last year.

[music] >> Faith: How did you see a lot of their cultural heritage being expressed in their designs?

>> Amber: Well, each designer, just like any fashion designer, they have their own inspiration, their own history that they bring to the table, their own stories and narratives.

And a lot of the Indigenous designers -- a lot of the designers that I work with have their own unique Native design language that's based on who they are and where they're from.

[music] >> Amber: So you're going to see something much different, of course, from a designer who lives in the Arctic.

[music] >> Amber: A designer who lives such as Jamie Okuma, who's from California, I mean, when you look at the history of where they're from, their cultural history, their Indigenous histories, that does inform and often influence their collections.

[music] >> Amber: So it just adds to the diversity, which is just really great to see from Indigenous designers across Canada and the United States.

>> Faith: So you featured a collaboration with Balmain, so how did that partnership come about and what does that mean for the Native fashion industry globally?

>> Amber: I think true collaboration is important.

And it was exciting to have Balmain on the runway because it brings in a different audience.

It brings in a different perspective.

It raises questions.

It's like, why are you doing this?

And my goal is to really have Indigenous designers that are represented globally, and that means working and collaborating with other designers.

And so I invited Balmain on the Native runway because it just opens up new venues and new discourses for conversation to have the eye on what Native designers are doing, and also provides great opportunities for models.

And I'll state that the focus still is Indigenous designers, but I think it's important to leave doors open rather than to close doors down.

>> Faith: So in what ways are you seeing Indigenous fashion making an impact on the industry?

>> Amber: The impact is that there is a greater interest in Indigenous fashion right now.

Indigenous fashion is not new, it's just, it's getting new attention, which is driving more demand for Indigenous fashion, not only on the runway, not only for red carpets, but also in museum and gallery exhibitions.

[Music] >>Amber: The demand that people are reaching out to me for information, for connection, for shows, for programming is huge.

You actually see Indigenous fashion shows now popping up all across Canada and the United States, and I think that's great.

But I think the key element now to move forward is to ensure that Indigenous designers are actually being part of the business of fashion.

This needs to be economically viable for Indigenous designers and for models to move forward with actually being part of the fashion industry.

Vegas, stay.

[Faith and Amber laugh] >>Amber: You haven't answered your questions yet.

>> Faith: Yeah!

Still have questions.

>> Amber: So it really is great that there's such a great spotlight right now on Indigenous fashion.

But now the conversation and the discourse needs to move forward so that there is really an economic impact and benefit for Native people in the fashion industry, rather than being a curiosity or a show.

[Music] >> Faith: So what are you excited to explore next?

[Music] >> Amber: I think what I'm excited to explore next is to really grow Native fashion as an industry.

[Music] >> Amber: That's what I'm really excited for next, is to continue this discourse into something that, again, really has an economic impact.

And so that includes having showrooms in Paris, having showrooms in Tokyo to really get high-quality PR representation for the Indigenous designers, to get Native designers outside of Santa Fe, outside of these niche Native shows.

But also the goal is to bring the fashion industry here, to make Santa Fe a fashion city during all of the fashion weeks that happen globally.

>> Faith: So speaking about the 2025 fashion show, can you tell me a little bit about what your vision is for that one?

>> Amber: Yes.

Well, the vision is Native Fashion Week Santa Fe.

In the rail yard, there's going to be a fashion film festival at the Violet Crown.

We're having our media VIP launch on the Sky Rail Train, and there's a boutique fashion show and a really great intimate experience for VIPs and the media.

I have over 30 designers booked and over a hundred models each day from across Canada and the United States.

And so we're just going to overtake the Rail Yard, and I'm super excited.

>> Faith: It sounds like the biggest show yet, honestly.

>> Amber: Yes.

It actually, this will be the biggest show that I have done so far.

Wow [Music] >> Faith: And what will Vegas be wearing in 2025?

>> Amber: Well, Vegas, she can't reveal yet, but she has a few stylists who are working with her and working with some designers to make sure that she represents Native designers well for Native Fashion Week, Santa Fe, May 8th to 11th, 2025.

>> Faith: I'm so excited!

>> Amber: Yes, yes, she's been at every fashion show I've done in Santa Fe.

>> Faith: She's a little model.

>> Amber: Yes, she is.

>>Vegas: [Ding!]

>>Celebrating the Cowgirl >> Megan: Many women really don't like the term cowgirl.

Instead, they'll say cowboy girl or cowboy gal.

I've even heard people say, Don't, don't, call a woman who's a good hand with a horse or with cattle or whatever.

Don't call her a cowgirl.

Call her a cowboy.

And I think that tells a story about the West that is not accurate.

It's not the story of the West that I grew up in.

People want to be a cowboy.

Why don't they want to be a cowgirl?

[Music] >> Megan: I chose my cousin to portray in this art because I think she is an incredible horsewoman and she definitely knows a lot more, than I know.

She's done it for a long, long time.

[Music] >> Megan: My art, which I would say I would call contemporary Western art, kind of falls between the cracks sometimes because there is definitely Western galleries and Western shows that my work would not fit in and they would say it's too, too modern or too contemporary.

On the other hand, there's shows that, you know, like the things that aren't Western, which I would be way too Western for.

A lot of times when people go really colorful, they really begin to be more abstract or expressionistic and lose some of the realism to it.

And for me, the realism is also important.

You know, I literally was riding horses before I could walk, and I know that that seems like a tall tale, but it's not.

And there's pictures of me as soon as I could hang on to a saddle horn, I was up there.

And my mom said I would cry as soon as they took me off.

I just always wanted to be around the horses.

Right now we're in Tulsa.

It's a lot different living in a city.

You know, that's not really my preferred place to live, but there's beauty no matter where you are.

And then of course there's the Cowboy Museum, Columbus City.

And I really try to get down to the Cowboy Museum as much as I can.

It's always informative, always beautiful.

Looking through the old saddles and all of that, it's so inspiring to look back at the craftsmanship and the patterns and the styles that were used.

[Music] [Phone Ringing] >> Megan: Hi Priscilla, how are you?

>> Priscilla: Good, Megan, how are you doing today?

>> Megan: Doing well.

So are you ready to get started?

So Cowgirl Artists of America is an organization that's working to increase opportunities and representation for female Western artists and makers.

The idea for CGA happened in 2018 when I went to a really beautiful Western art show, and as I looked around, I began to notice that there were not very many women, and I just thought, I want to do something about this.

And so I just started with Instagram and I started reaching out to female Western artists and I would send them a message, "Hey, your work's beautiful.

Can I share it?"

I started doing monthly Zoom meetings and then people were like, "How do I join?

How do I join?"

Don't only get stuck in art-based hashtags.

And so in May of 2021, I was like, "Okay, we're doing it."

[Music] >> Megan: They are fine artists, so they're painting, sculpting, they're photographers or traditional artists, so maybe they're saddle-makers or they are boot makers.

Silversmiths.

When I think about it, it's kind of like mind boggling how much the organization has done in such a short time.

[Music] >> Megan: I'm really happy with it.

Yesterday I called it, what did I call it?

Vintage... Vintage pop.

That's what it feels like to me right now, a vintage pop piece, which I don't know if that's a thing or not, but if it isn't, it should be.

[Music] >> Megan: Women are really good with horses.

[Music] >> Megan: And a lot of times you see these cowgirls out there too with a baby on their hip.

All of that is so important.

And it's because of women like my grandma Betty and my aunt Shelly that women are able to grow up and to do the things that they want to do because we've been supported to go out there and be cowgirls.

So, thanks, Grandma.

>> Betty: You're very welcome.

You're one of my special kids too.

[Music] >> Megan: It's time to celebrate the cowgirl.

[Music] >>Happiness.

[Music] >> Helen: I love my art.

It lifts me.

You know, it makes me happy.

It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing my goals.

See, when I first started doing art, I didn't think I could do anything.

I had a lot of people telling me I could do it, and I didn't have any faith in myself.

But now I have a lot of faith in myself.

I like to send my stuff around the world to help somebody.

You know, there's kids out there that can't do what I do, and they can't sew, they can't paint, and they can't draw.

And I watch a lot of kids' shows, and it touches me.

And when I do my art, I think about them kids.

I think about them kids across the sea, here in America that can't draw, can't spell, can't do a lot of stuff.

So I know I'm thankful that I can do what I can do.

I used to be scared of stuff, but I had a buddy that broke me out of that.

So I'm not scared anymore of stuff.

Outside of scary pictures on TV, I'm scared of that.

I change the channel all the time, because now I get into cartoons.

Because I'm a grandma, and I like to be--I want my grandkids to be proud of me.

And I want my providers, and I want the studio and everybody to be proud of me.

Because I want them to know I not only do this for me, but I want to show them I appreciate.

I appreciate Nick, I appreciate Ed.

Sometimes I have to ask for ideas, because I get stuck.

You know what I mean?

I'm doing my turtles now, and I'm stuck.

I started out sewing, and then the sewing didn't go right.

So then I did the ribbon thing with the turtles.

See, this is the bottom, this is the bottom.

And then I got the heads put up until I get the other parts.

You know, the legs and the thing I was telling you about the turtle.

Before I started, I had to cut these pieces before I could sew them together, because the material was real thick.

And when I make the shell part, me and Heather, she did the paste thing, and then we glued all these different pieces.

Don't let nobody tell you you can't do it.

I had to start from the bottom to work my way up, because I didn't have any confidence in myself.

People had confidence in me, but I didn't have any.

They kept telling me I could do it, and I kept telling them, I can't do that!

I don't know how to do that!

But now, since I've been doing it, I've been hyped up.

Because I can't sleep at night, because I'm thinking about all kinds of ideas, you know, what to do next.

When they had the COVID thing, I was going nuts.

I was walking back and forth in my house, going crazy.

I was fussing with my providers, because I couldn't come.

I was real mean.

My provider would say, yeah, I was real mean.

I cussed.

I don't usually cuss, but when I get angry it comes out.

>>That was because you couldn't do your artwork?

>> Helen: Yeah.

I was angry for them days that we couldn't come.

I wouldn't talk.

I didn't eat.

I turned on the TV, and I went through...

I even watched some scary pictures, because I was so angry.

I couldn't come to the art studio, because this makes me happy, you know, knowing that you can come to a place where you can be yourself at the art studio.

Knowing you're accomplishing your goals, and you're making other people happy, and making you feel good inside, when you do your art, there's something inside of you that's telling you, "I can do it!"

[Music] >>The award-winning arts and culture series ¡COLORES!

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From classic episodes to brand new shows, ¡COLORES!

is everywhere.

Watch now on your favorite NMPBS platforms.

[music] >>Funding for ¡COLORES!

was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, and viewers like you.