Indigenous New York Fashion Week Returns Sept. 10–15, and New York Fashion Week Will Never Be the Same

Walk into any powwow or Native gathering, and you will find yourself surrounded by the kind of fashion that has survived for centuries without ever going out of style: traditional hand-tanned hide cut skillfully for elegant buckskin dresses and moccasins, dentalium, quill, and glass beads arranged in designs that tell the story of our families, histories, and survival. But you’ll also see the aunties decked out in their ribbon skirts, beaded-brim fedoras, favorite Steven Paul or Judd graphic tee, or the beautiful offerings from B. Yellowtail and Red Berry Woman.

Indigenous people have always been fashionistas, creating carefully crafted couture for daily and ceremonial wear. But for the mainstream fashion industry, Native designers, from clothing to jewelry have largely been overlooked by the mainstream fashion industry. Changing that took most of a century.

Lloyd Kiva New moved the needle first, opening a label out of Scottsdale in the 1940s that is widely credited as the first Native-owned, high-end fashion house with international sales. Bonita Woodie of Big Water Design was the first Native American designer showcased at Milan Fashion Week in the 1990s. Recognition in print came much later. Kelly Holmes, of the Cheyenne River Lakota, launched Native Max Magazine in 2012, the first U.S. publication to specifically highlight Native fashion.

Television reached a wider audience the following year, when Taos Pueblo designer Patricia Michaels turned a runner-up finish on Project Runway’s eleventh season into the largest platform an Indigenous designer had yet been given, leading to greater awareness and opportunity for Native fashion.

The first, now annual, SWAIA Native fashion show took place in 2014. The Peabody Essex Museum’s 2015 exhibition “Native Fashion Now” toured for two years before closing at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York in 2017, with Diné designer Orlando Dugi’s hand-beaded, feather-trimmed couture among the work on view. Dugi carried that same work to Style Fashion Week in New York the following year.

The Native fashion industry is now booming, with a growing list of Native designers being recognized in the global fashion industry, and Indigenous-led fashion shows and exhibitions being hosted everywhere from local Native communities to global institutions like the Museum of World Culture in Sweden.

In Santa Fe, Amber Dawn Bear Robe organized the inaugural Native Fashion Week in 2024.

Her goal was simple: “to have New York come here, and you are New York fashion.” CFDA chief executive Steven Kolb described the industry’s job in nearly the same terms: “For growth, it’s about identifying the talent to best represent Indigenous design in fashion capitals like New York.”

None of it, though, ever earned an Indigenous-led show a place on the CFDA’s own calendar.

Until now.

Indigenous New York Fashion Week is the first Native fashion event listed on CFDA’s official calendar this year. Now in its second year, the event has an official spot on the CFDA’s New York Fashion Week schedule, and its runway shows will be livestreamed from Rockefeller Center.

The first outing had none of that backing. INYFW opened Sept. 11, 2025, inside Grace Exhibition Space in the East Village, where a jewelry runway directed by Omar Monroy kicked off two nights of designer shows. More than 30 Indigenous-led labels showed, including Dorothy Grant, Teton Trade Cloth and Xander Stonefish, with a crew of more than 100 paid Indigenous stylists, makeup artists and producers working behind the scenes. INYFW grew out of Relative Arts NYC, the East Village shop and studio founded and run by Korina Emmerich and Liana Shewey. Both Emmerich and Shewey serve as executive directors of the fashion week, which operates as a nonprofit.

Korina Emmerich and Liana Shewey. Photo by @newyorknizhoni

“At its core, INYFW is about carving out space for Indigenous designers and models to take the global stage on their own terms, in a place like NYC that often ignores and suppresses Indigenous voices,” Emmerich said. “We are here to celebrate cultural resilience, Indigenous futurism, and artistic excellence, while challenging the fashion industry to rethink who gets to define style, innovation, and luxury.”

Returning after what organizers describe as a sold-out debut, this year’s roster draws designers, models, artists, and musicians from across Turtle Island and beyond, including Relative Arts, Copper Canoe Woman, Hakhu, Josh Tafoya, Kené Kaya, and Mobilize waskawewin. An entirely Indigenous-led hair, makeup, styling, and production team will be supporting them, along with a partner list that includes the Decolonizing Wealth Project, the Scherman Foundation, Made in NYC, Urban Indigenous Collective, Indigiqueer Creative Alliance, Teton Trade Cloth, and Mr. Smith.

Indigenous New York Fashion Week, running Sept. 10 through 15, moves through runway presentations, panels, gatherings, parties, and special events built around the innovation, beauty, and breadth of Indigenous creativity today.

It opens with the INYFW x Gochman Collection Designer Brunch and the reopening of Relative Arts’ East Village studio, then shifts into the INYFW Marketplace at Urban Indigenous Collective for the weekend. Runway showcases land Sept. 11 through 13 at the American Indian Community House, breaking in a new home in the heart of the Garment District, with six shows organized under the themes Contemporary Culture, Emerging Voices, Knowledge Keepers, Thought Leaders, Luxury and Couture. An opening party and concert at TV Eye caps the first weekend, and the week wraps up with INYFW x Made in NYC, a mixer on garment manufacturing.

Tickets are on sale now at indigenousnyfw.com/tickets.

Organizers put it simply: “come see what Indigenous fashion looks like on our own terms.”

Here’s the Full Schedule for Indigenous New York Fashion Week:

Thursday, September 10

12–6 p.m. — Relative Arts Grand Re-Opening, Relative Arts, 367 East 10th Street (free)
12–2 p.m. — INYFW x Gochman Collection Designer Brunch (invite-only)
12–6 p.m., through Sept. 13 — INYFW livestream watch party, Relative Arts, 367 East 10th Street

Friday, September 11

1–9 p.m., through Sept. 13 — INYFW Marketplace and livestream watch party, Urban Indigenous Collective, 315 West 39th Street
2–3:30 p.m. — Runway 1, Contemporary Culture, American Indian Community House ($75)
6:30–8 p.m. — Runway 2, Emerging Voices, American Indian Community House ($75)
10 p.m.–4 a.m. — Opening Party and Concert, TV Eye, Queens ($25 in advance)

Saturday, September 12

2–3:30 p.m. — Runway 3, Knowledge Keepers, American Indian Community House ($75)
6:30–8 p.m. — Runway 4, Thought Leaders, American Indian Community House ($75)

Sunday, September 13