Santa Fe delivered again.
SWAIA’s third annual Native Fashion Week wrapped this weekend with its signature gala, A Taste of Native Fashion, at the Eldorado Hotel and Spa. Five celebrated Native American designers. Twenty-five one-of-a-kind looks. A sold-out crowd. And a room full of Santa Fe’s fashionable people of the night.
Produced in partnership with Peshawn Bread (Comanche/Kiowa/Cherokee), the evening was a full sensory experience: fashion, food, and live performances. Between collections, guests were treated to a feast from Chef Raymond Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo), whose menu spotlighted traditional Indigenous ingredients including squash, wild plums, and buffalo short ribs. The performances were equally stunning: opera singer Bo Shimmin (Acoma Pueblo), violinist Aspyn Kaskalla (Navajo), and singer Tiana Spotted Thunder (Lakota) each took the stage and held it.
But the fashion? The fashion was the heart of it all.
Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Wailaki/Okinawan/Shoshone-Bannock), a CFDA designer and one of the most respected voices in Indigenous fashion, opened the night and immediately set the tone. Her standout piece: a hand-painted leather dress that had the room in awe from the moment it appeared. It was one of the most talked-about looks of the evening, and for good reason.
Patricia Michaels (Taos Pueblo) brought her collection, Secrets of the Harvest, five handmade dresses inspired by memory and the sacred rhythm of the harvest season. Her signature hand-painted silks did what they always do: flowed like something between art and air.
Jontay Kham (Plains Cree) presented River Lily Park, a collection the designer describes as a homecoming. “This year’s collection marks a homecoming, a return to where it all began,” said Kham. “It revisits the dreams and visions that first started to bloom in my childhood, when I imagined becoming a fashion designer and shaped my world from gardens, color, and fun imagination.”
Himikalas Pamela Baker (Squamish/Kwakiutl/Tlingit/Haida), based in Vancouver, presented Back to Roots — Family: Where the Earth Hears Our Names 2026. Bold avant-garde silhouettes, textures that called up family regalia, innovative fabric work, Baker’s collection examined ceremony, land, and lineage in a way that only she can.
Lauren Good Day (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara) closed the show beautifully. Drawing on the visual traditions of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation of the Northern Plains, Good Day reimagined the ribbon dress and traditional silhouettes through the lens of her celebrated ledger art, centering matriarchy as a living, breathing system of care, memory, and continuity.
SWAIA Executive Director Jamie Schulze (Northern Cheyenne/Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) captured it best: “What is extraordinary about this year’s event is that this group of artists will never again come together to create in this format. Events like this affirm why SWAIA Native Fashion Week matters, for our designers, for Indigenous communities, and for the future of fashion.”
She’s right. And the future is looking brilliant.
SWAIA’s next fashion show takes place August 16 at 3 p.m. during the 104th Annual Santa Fe Indian Market. Tickets go on sale mid-May 2026 at swaia.org.
