News that 32-year-old Jolonzo Goldtooth’s his fashion designs have been accepted for International Indigenous Fashion Week in March hasn’t set in for him.
“It’s still surreal,” he said. “The great thing about it is that it’s during Paris Fashion Week.”
The news gets better.
Not only is his collection of 15 to 20 pieces going to be shown in Paris, it has also been selected to be shown at the Eiffel Tower.
International Indigenous Fashion Week is a mix of music and fashion by indigenous artists from the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Goldtooth, a member of the Navajo Nation who splits his time between Durango and Farmington, will also take four of his own models to Paris because, he says, he strives to work with regional models.
“We’ll be going there as a team,” he said. “I didn’t want to go by myself. We’re just working together to do what we can to make this trip an amazing one and really fully express not just our indigenous self and heritage. We really want to go there with information about what’s going on with First Nations people, with Native Americans and how we take influence from Western society, and also at the same time, we want to influence people about our traditions, heritage, identity. That’s a huge, important thing: identity.
“This is my passion, this is my identity to express and involve people in this movement.”
Goldtooth’s designs, which he sells under the brand JG Indie, include haute couture dresses, skirts, accessories and menswear. He is inspired by the Southwest – its landscape, people, nature and traditional lifestyle, he said, adding that he takes those ideas and fuses them with mainstream fashion. He describes his designs as reflecting “the American Indian Urban Lifestyle.”
Goldtooth is familiar with big runway shows. Since beginning fashion design in 2012, he has shown collections at New York Fashion Week and at First Nations fashion shows in Canada, and in New Zealand and Australia.
“It’s a huge movement right now with Native artists. It’s a modern, current movement with Native Americans, or First Nations people or just indigenous people all over,” he said. “For me, getting to travel, it’s a movement everywhere: In New Zealand, Australia, Canada and now, finally, I get to go to Western society and express my fusion of modern fashion, being Native American. It’s not just purely Native American – it’s modern; it’s a fusion of my indigenous background with modern fashion. I take strong pride in coming from the Southwestern region, representing the tribes from the Southwest. And also, I fuse my fashion with Plains tribes, Northerner tribes.”
Goldtooth, whose company is JG Indie, has started a GoFundMe campaign to help offset some of the expenses for him and his models to travel to Paris for the show.
“I’ve included local emerging models who want to be a part of the fashion industry, even if they don’t know much about it. We learn as we go, and so now, I brought a fashion team with me to each of these major locations. I’ve always brought at the least three models with me from the region,” he said. “These girls and guys learn how to model, and I love to help them get their portfolios started and market themselves.”
Goldtooth, who didn’t begin his career in fashion until after college, where he studied behavioral psychology, credits his family with setting him on his fashion-design path, especially his great-aunt who worked at the now-closed Bula sportswear factory in Bodo Industrial Park.
“I remember going there and going into the factory and seeing all the colors, I think that’s in part why I use bold colors in my designs,” he said. “She sewed sportswear, and I just grew up with all of that, just standing there when I was really young, watching her sew. It was stimulating visually and physically. For me now, whenever I create a pattern and I put it together, I step back when I’m done and think, ‘Oh my God, did I really make this?’
“I take strong pride in my identity. I learned how to sew from the strong, indigenous woman in my life. I come from a matriarch tribe, so the women are in charge, so that’s who I looked up to since birth,” he said. “I feel like I’m a legacy, and I picked up this skill from my aunt. I think this is the next stage for me.”
katie@durangoherald.com
More information
For more information about Jolonzo Goldtooth’s GoFundMe campaign, visit
https://bit.ly/2I0cJBY
. Check out Goldtooth’s designs at
www.jg-indie.com
.
