Yazzgrl Art Skirt Designs: Hybrid Version

Venaya with a buyer in the Four Corners, USA community

I n s p i r e d

Throughout 'Indin' Country the cultural - or tribal - norms tend to leave the confines of the "rez" and move to become trends in other communities.  Such is the ribbon skirt.  From what I have come to know, it is a design that originates in the Plains culture of North American Indigenous women.  The ribbon skirt is a basic straight skirt that is adorned with various colors and widths of satin ribbon.  It is become commonplace in the powwow circles which perpetuate that Pan-Indin' culture.  As a person who at one point was a powwow Jingle Dress dancer, I have seen the ribbon skirt design plenty of times.

As many Indigenous women ( and men too) have come to design and create the cultural/tribal fashions of their roots, I too do the same. For me though it is more about the 'inspired' version of the skirt.  I call my skirts I design and create - Hybrid Ribbon Skirts.

Yes, I am inspired by the ribbon skirt, but they are grounded in the southwestern matriarch's style in of the three-tiered Dine' (Navajo) women's skirts.  Growing up amidst my female matriarchs, I admired how they would were their full skirts.  Sometimes they were made of plan cotton, sometimes it was the fine calico prints, and then at other times these skirts were made of satin or fine velveteen.  And, too the matriarch's of the southwest, high desert lands would adorn their skirts with hues of ric-rac or fancy satin ribbon.

Now - I design and make my skirts to share with other sisters, and other women in the world. I am also sure to tell them ( the collector ) of the story of skirts and of Indigenous women's clothing in the tribal communities of North America, Canada and Mexico to South America.

I share this image as a means of continuing that narrative of the Indigenous women's skirt culture.

Blessings All Around -

VJY

2019

#indigenousadornment#ootd#fashion#nativeamerican#women#navajo