Indigenous luxury on display at this year’s Met Gala
The red carpet at this year’s Met Gala in New York carried the steps of Indigenous ancestors, and some notable Indigenous people too.
Keri Ataumbi, a Kiowa jeweller and metalsmith based in Sante Fe, N.M., collaborated with Gabriela Hearst to create the Met Gala look for actor Lily Gladstone, a recent Oscar nominee for her work on Killers of the Flower Moon.
“Both of our nations have a similar belief system that our ancestors are in the sky and that when we pass on we go up into the stars,” said Ataumbi. “So to look upon the Milky Way [is] to look upon our ancestors.”
Gladstone is Blackfeet and Nimiipuu on her father’s side. Like Ataumbi’s nation, hers is from the Great Plains of the United States.
The Met gala — an annual star-studded fundraiser for the Costume Institute at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art — is considered by some to be one of the biggest nights in fashion.
This year’s fundraiser was co-chaired by Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth.
At the Monday event, Gladstone wore a simple black organza cape and silk wool dress with nearly 500 recycled metal stars and glass beads, which Ataumbi handcrafted and embroidered into the shape of nine different constellations.
She said she was approached by Gladstone’s people about the collaboration right after the Oscars in March.
Arranging and embroidering the constellations onto Gladstone’s cape took her over 120 hours to complete.
“We’re really born with actual couture, and those objects that are made for us are usually made by our aunties and our uncles and our relatives, and they’re made with intention and prayer,” Ataumbi told CBC Indigenous.
She said in making the dress for Gladstone, she wanted to ensure the actor felt embraced and supported by her own ancestors, as if they were walking through the Met Gala with her.
Arctic florals
Yukon fashion designer Heather Dickson (Tlingit, Nuxalk and Tagish Nations) made the beadwork for American model and activist Quannah Chasinghorse to wear.
“It was so cool to see Indigenous luxury like moose hide, home-tanned hide and caribou-hair tufting and beadwork at such a high-profile fashion event,” said Dickson, who said she always paid attention to Met Gala trends as a fashion student.
Dickson told CBC Indigenous she was only given a week to create the look: a fully beaded belt, earrings, two rings, two hair beads and four bobby pins.
She said she was sewing from 6 a.m. to midnight to complete her beadwork and wanted to include some extra pieces so Chasinghorse had options to choose from.
She relied on community and friends to meet her tight deadline, trading for moose hide and collaborating with artist Melanie Parsons to make the earrings.
“I picked like the softest one [hide] that I thought would be beautiful to bead,” she said.
This year’s Met Gala celebrated the Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, which the gallery says “features approximately 220 garments and accessories spanning four centuries, all visually connected through themes of nature.”
Dickson said that theme resonated with her on many levels, particularly because the forget-me-not flower signifies the coming of summer and was a perfect compliment Chasinghorse’s custom lavender H&M gown.
In an Instagram post, she said she used 50 different types of beads in the pieces Chasinghorse wore to the Met Gala.
The materials included caribou hair, home-tanned moose hide, emerald beads, labradorite beads, silver-plated beads, aurora borealis crystals, mother of pearl beads, white topaz beads, dentalium shells, hand-dyed feathers and antique European beads, she said.
In the post, she also thanked Chasinghorse for trusting her and making a dream she didn’t even know she could have possible.
