Manitobah x Peshawn Bread Collaboration Stitches Protection, Healing and Home Into Every Step

Manitobah’s newest artist collaboration, Manitobah x Peshawn Bread, pairs the brand with Auncle Peshawn Bread (Comanche/Kiowa/Cherokee), a nonbinary queer designer, filmmaker, and creative director who brings cultural expertise to major productions and brand partnerships while pushing for more Native-led power and visibility in both fashion and film.

The Peshawn Bread Dancer Tall Lace-Up Boot is a tall, lace-up style built around Bread’s embroidered, story-driven artwork. Released as part of Manitobah’s annual series that invites Indigenous artists to use its footwear as a canvas, Bread’s design is built around plant imagery and symbolism tied to land-based knowledge.

The artwork features a cedar motif that points to home and healing, along with an arrow detail at the back of the boot that signals protection and strength. Manitobah also notes the boot is finished with its Turtle Sole, created by Cree artist Heather Endall, and intended to provide comfort and stability for everyday wear.

Bread traced the concept to family and to seasonal practices that are still active, not historical. “The boot is inspired by my Comanche relatives and the utility of our footwear. I also found inspiration from the spring and the Indigenous resistance of foraging/caring for the land. The embroidered plant on the side represents cedar from where I call home on the southern plains and carries medicine with you through each step. The arrow on the back is my idea of protection and strength,” Bread said.

Bread is stepping into this release with momentum. Their film work includes an associate producer credit on Amazon’s Outer Range and a contribution to Marvel’s Echo. On the fashion side, they’ve served as creative director at Teton Trade Cloth and worked as a cultural liaison for Polo Ralph Lauren x Naiomi Glasses.

In 2023, Bread launched House of Sutai, a gender-expansive line built around narrative, traditional silhouettes, and natural materials such as shells and pearls. The brand made its runway debut at SWAIA Native Fashion Week 2024 and has since been covered by ELLE, Vogue, The New York Times, and PBS. Bread lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

For Manitobah, working with Bread is another powerful collaboration that keeps Indigenous artists and their respective story-driven narratives at the forefront. For Bread, the boot holds specific markers, cedar from home, springtime, relatives, and protection, stitched where they’ll be seen and carried forward every time the boots are worn.