Tribal fashionista participates in Santa Fe fashion show

By Nicole Montesano

Smoke Signals staff writer

It was a dream come true for Tribal member and fashionista Auburn Logan; the designer she’d been tagging for months in her Instagram posts had sent her an application form to model in a fashion show at the Santa Fe Indian Market in New Mexico.

Logan said the excitement really kicked in when she learned her application had been accepted.

“I was excited, not knowing what to expect, and I was thinking, ‘If I don’t get it, at least I had the opportunity offered,’” she said. “It felt like all my work had paid off and I had been seen. It was validating.”

Logan was a co-coordinator for the fashion show held in July at Spirit Mountain Casino and said at the time that it was “something I have always dreamt of since I was a little girl.”

That show was intended to bring the world of fashion to the Pacific Northwest and showcase regional Native talent.

Just a few weeks later, Logan was on the way to New Mexico. “This summer has been very influential,” she said.

For the last year, Logan had been buying clothing from the line of Native fashion designer Lauren Good Day (Arikara, Hidatsa, Blackfeet and Plains Cree), creating outfits using them and tagging Good Day in her Instagram posts.

“I have been a huge supporter of Lauren Good Day for a number of years, buying her products — out of all the Native artists, I gravitate toward her; she matches my aesthetics,” Logan said.

Participating in the fashion show, showing for her favorite designer, was deeply fulfilling, Logan said.

“Besides seeing people through a screen on your phone, you get to meet them,” she said. “I got to meet designers, models, singers — all of it was very surreal.”

She said she also loved the outfit she modeled; “a beige dress with vertical parfleche designs on the front and back,” and “a silk headscarf with parfleche butterflies.”

Parfleche designs, named for the rawhide carrying bags made by Plains Tribes, are bright geometrical patterns similar to those typically used on parfleche bags.

“It was cool, comfortable, easy to move in, modest — and just gorgeous, as well,” Logan said.

The design will be released soon, she said. A silk scarf featuring parfleche butterflies is available on Good Day’s website.

“We did fittings and the designers put us in what thought was best suited for us,” Logan said.

She said that as far as she knew, she was the only Pacific Northwest or Grand Ronde Tribal member present, and that it felt like an honor to be a representative of her Tribe and region.