Earlier this year, Hopi-Tewa artist Jessica Wiarda coordinated and launched Utah’s first Indigenous Fashion Week. In 2024, she’s doubling down.
The idea for the event was initially sparked in casual conversation. “The Navajo Nation has their own fashion week,” Wiarda says. “One of my friends suggested offhand that we do that same thing here, but with the mix of community members living in Salt Lake City.”
Wiarda told her friend group that she was serious about hosting a fashion week, and the name alone was all it took to get people on board.
“Immediately, there were volunteers,” Wiarda says. “Friends called friends who called other friends, and soon we had models, designers, artists—even an emcee. It got bigger and bigger completely organically.”
Opportunities for self-expression
When Crystal Loya, a Redhouse Diné designer, was asked to participate in Indigenous Fashion Week, she had just finished some dresses and completed some beadwork from the powwows she’d attended, she says. Initially, Loya assumed she’d be designing for other models—but then Wiarda asked her to represent herself.
“I was shy at first, just humbled to be a part of something like this,” Loya says. “As I walked, my shyness turned into, ‘Okay, I got this, this is me. This is my take on powwow: a contemporary northern traditional cloth dancer.’ After it was all done, I was proud. Proud of myself, as an Indigenous woman. Proud to participate, then get elevated to showcase in an all-Native fashion show. Proud to support and elevate the Native community here on the Wasatch Front.”
Though her mother loves to sew, Loya didn’t pick up the skill until a middle school home economics class, where she learned to work the machines.
“[My mother] gave me the work ethic of, ‘If you want it done, do it yourself,’ and that’s [become] my motto for when I can’t find something already pre-made or that fits,” she says. “That has led me down a path of making my own regalia.”
Not every volunteer was an experienced designer, though. Wiarda says many people she called were creating clothes and modeling for the first time.
“All of our models had never modeled before,” she says. “People were really inspired, and I think they just trusted me.”