Native Fashion Show at Peabody Essex Museum first to feature Native American fashion

By

Dani Greene

Published
Dec 14, 2015

'Native Fashion Now', the first large-scale exhibition of fashion by indigenous designers across the US and Canada, opened on Nov 16, 2015 at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, MA, where it will be on view through March 6, 2016.

 
The exhibition includes nearly 100 works by Native American designers from the 1950s through today. The show also explores ways in which non-Native American designers, including Isaac Mizrahi and Ralph Lauren, have adopted and translated Native American designs.

Featuring contemporary apparel, footwear and accessories, the exhibition highlights the vitality of pioneering Native American designers. PEM’s Curator of Native American Art and Culture Karen Kramer said of the exhibition, “Contemporary Native fashion designers are dismantling and upending familiar motifs, adopting new forms of expression and materials, and sharing their vision of Native Culture and design with a global audience.”

Founded in 1799, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, MA is one of the oldest and fastest growing museums in North America. The museum holds exhibitions, programming and special events exploring cross-cultural connections, with topics including American art and architecture, Asian export art, photography, maritime art and history, as well as Native American, Oceanic and African art.