Santa Fe Indian Market week runs on energy; booths going up before sunrise, lines around the Plaza, everyone you have ever met somehow in the same three blocks. This year, a good portion of that energy had an address: La Fonda on the Plaza, where Indigenous House set up for two days and invited the community in.
The Native-women-owned brand and media company built the weekend around the things it exists to celebrate, music, fashion, film, food and style, and around a premise that is still rarer than it should be: Indigenous people owning the platform, not just appearing on it.
The energy at the Santa Fe Indian Market is truly unmatched, and we could not have been more excited to bring to life Indigenous House by inviting the community together to experience some of the very best in music, fashion, art, and food. This weekend we truly showcased how we’re building a brand rooted in ownership, representation, and celebration, creating real economic opportunity for Indigenous creators, storytellers, and entrepreneurs — something our community has never fully seen before.
Crystal Echo Hawk, founder and president of Indigenous House
The women’s breakfast
The weekend opened with a women’s breakfast and a fireside chat with Deb Haaland, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, now a candidate for governor of New Mexico. Tables filled up very early. If you have spent any time in Indian Country, you know exactly what that room felt like: a lot of accomplished women, very little posturing, and coffee going cold because nobody wanted to break the conversation.
Representation, on screen and on the panel
Later that day, the conversation moved to film. Lou Diamond Phillips, Elisha Pratt, James Whitecloud, James Healy Jr., and Lane Factor sat down to talk about their new film Gangland and what representation actually requires, not just who is on screen, but who is making the calls behind it.
The fashion conversation came the next day, moderated by Vogue senior fashion and style writer Christian Allaire, with Tlingit artist and jewelry designer Jennifer Younger, Faherty Brand co-founder Kerry Docherty, N8iV Beauty founder Ruth-Ann Thorn, designer Pamela Baker, and ThunderVoice Hat Co.’s Lehi ThunderVoice Eagle. Design, culture, business, and the ongoing question of how Native designers scale without giving anything away.
The first Creator Summit
Indigenous House also hosted its first Creator Summit, in partnership with the YouTube Creator Collective, featuring Inuk creator Shina Nova and Anishinaabe content creator Eagle Blackbird, both of whom got refreshingly specific about the business of it: what worked, what did not, and what they wish they had known earlier. In front of that room, Indigenous House announced the launch of its Indigenous Digital Creator Program.
We didn’t just host a summit — we brought together an absolute powerhouse of a line-up for something truly epic. We brought together the brightest Indigenous content creators not just to network, but to redefine how our stories are told and owned in the new media landscape. The ideas and connections made at this summit will ripple through our communities for years to come.
Jade Begay, head of content and community, Indigenous House
The Rez Roundup Honky Tonk
And then the weekend closed the way it should have: loud.
The Rez Roundup Honky Tonk featured performances by Vincent Neil Emerson, Kalyn Fay, Sierra Spirit, and DJ Garronteed, plus a menu from James Beard Award-winning chef Sean Sherman and chef Claudia Serrato, Ph.D. Boots, hats, fringe, a courtyard at golden hour. Creative director Peshawn Bread held it down in red and fringe.
Throughout the weekend, the Indigenous House Mercantile kept a curated marketplace running with Wakeah Jhane, N8iV Beauty, Faherty Brand, House of Sutai, Jennifer Younger, Stoner Baby Nails, Pacha Indigenous Arts, and NDN Girls Book Club, which, notably, is part of an activation that most often gets treated as an afterthought and here was treated as the point.
The event was supported by The Christensen Fund, Poarch Creek Indians, Faherty Brand, YouTube and N8iV Beauty.
Why it mattered
Indian Market has never lacked for Native excellence. What has changed is who is building the rooms; it’s where it happens. For two days at La Fonda, the answer was us, and it looked good on everybody.
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Photos: Sam Wasson / Getty Images for Indigenous House
