INDIGENOUS A&E: Native style, a ‘Borders’ series, and a buffalo stamp-ede

The latest: Top designers north and south, ‘Borders’ rez drama, mammals and raptors immortalized

The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts is presenting SWAIA Native Fashion Week Friday and Saturday, May 8-9, at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And up in Toronto, Canada a new exhibit, “Always in Fashion,” curated by Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, opened May 1 and runs through Jan. 3, 2027, at the Textile Museum of Canada.

SWAIA is taking a different approach this year with its fashion week, with a two-day market Friday and Saturday with 20 vendors at the El Dorado Hotel, a dinner by “Chopped” Chef Ray Naranjo and a show on Saturday night.

“This year’s format allows us to focus on depth over scale,” said SWAIA Executive Director Jamie Schulze. “By bringing the program into a single venue, we are creating higher-impact moments, stronger connections between designers and audiences, and new opportunities to integrate hospitality, culinary storytelling, and fashion into one cohesive experience.”

Fashion Show producer Peshawn Bread told ICT the vendors will offer a broad selection of designs.

“We are  wanting to create a little more intimacy with designs that are not fast fashion,” Bread said. “It’s really going back into craft and that slow process. We’ll have some wonderful vendors — accessory designers,  jewelry, clothing and more.”A Native Creatives Market will operate from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 8-9, in the Anasazi Ballroom. It is free and open to the public. On Saturday, May 9, the “Taste of Native Fashion Gala” will kick off at 6 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom. Tickets are required.

Featured designers are Patricia Michaels, Taos Pueblo; Himikalas Pamela Baker, Squamish/Kwakiutl/Tlingit;  Lauren Good Day, Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara Nation; Jamie Okuma, Luiseño/Wailaki/Okinawan/Shoshone-Bannock; and Jontay Kahm, Plains Cree.

In Canada, the Textile Museum describes “Always in Fashion” as “an immersive exhibit of Indigenous design and their transformative impact” on fashions in Canada and the United States.

“This exhibition emerges from the urgent need to recognize and celebrate Indigenous designers who are reshaping the industry by reclaiming cultural narratives, innovating with ancestral techniques, and challenging colonial frameworks within fashion,” according to the museum’s website.

The exhibition includes Randi Nelson, Jeremy Arviso (Original Landlords), Jason Baerg (Ayimach Horizons), Himikalas Pamela Baker (T.O.C. Legends), Catherine Boivin, Maggie Catface-Bear Robe Korina Emmerich (EMME Studios), Lesley Hampton, Shoshoni Hostler, Brian Jungen, Jontay Kahm, and many more.Mind-blowing designer Kahm will be in both shows with a new collection.

“I call this collection ‘River Lily Park’ vol 1,” he said on Instagram. “This year I want to reimagine the ‘Kahm’ aesthetic. The upcoming series marks a homecoming for my creative journey in fashion.”

He continued, “The inspirations of ‘River Lily Park’ revisit the dreams and fantasies that first started to bloom from my childhood. 16 years later my work has grown so much and stands taller more than ever. This time, I will be sharing nostalgic themes from my youth that echo from haunting fragrant gardens.”

“Borders,” a new Indigenous-led drama from Kenneth Shirley — founder of Indigenous Enterprise — centers on a young Native musician dealing with grief and survival in a border community. 

The ambitious project debuted with a pilot premiere in Phoenix on April 24. The first episode is set to air on a new upcoming streaming service called Channel 5, which also produced the pilot.  Channel 5’s YouTube will air the pilot early this summer, with the full series set to be released this fall.

“Borders” follows a generation spanning the U.S.-Mexico border in the Sonoran Desert with family tensions, economic pressure, and shifting dynamics.

At the center is Damion Thomas, a young, Native musician who gets entangled with cartel activity moving through a fictional tribal land known as the Anya Reservation. Some familiar faces include actors Gene BraveRock, Doc Native, and Lionel Thundercloud.

Shirley told ICT that the show is finally being released after revisions.

“We had a previous version that we reshot,” Shirley said. “Now we wanted to finally bring it out to the world. It is recut, and there are added scenes of who the fictional Anya Nation is, what the dilemma is, letting people know what goes on inside a border reservation.”

Shirley said plans call for three seasons, each with eight, 40-minute episodes.