Models in traditional ribbon skirts, jingle dresses and tea dresses will all be walking down the runway this weekend.
Healing Ribbons, a nonprofit working to promote positive culture identity, is leading the charge. Tami Buffalohead-McGill, the president of the organization and member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, said she started the program of intergenerational sewing to promote healing from historical traumas.
“What I discovered was when I was there sewing with Native American women, I felt that grounding, I felt like I could exhale that, you know, the weight was lifted off my shoulders,” she said.
Buffalohead-McGill started sewing with her niece Sierra to honor her sister (Sierra’s mother), who passed away in 2018.
Her sister’s death was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic in which she lost many more members of her family and due to restrictions that were in place at the time, couldn’t bury them according to her cultural customs. This also caused the Ponca sewing circle to cancel gatherings. And when Sierra told Buffalohead-McGill she wanted to start sewing again, that’s when Healing Ribbons was born.
Buffalohead-McGill had conducted both Native-based research and non-Native-based research that found sewing can be therapeutic.
Lestina Saul-Merdassi of Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, Isanti, Inhanktowan Sioux, will showcase a ribbon skirt and a cape. Before she begins her sewing process, she said she starts with a prayer.
“Doing that positively affects my mental health and my outlook and my gratitude too because I mean, there's so many ways that it affects me, but like with this cape, I don't know, I just feel like a connection to my ancestors too,” she said.
Another plus Saul-Merdassi mentioned was that she could bring her young daughter to the sewing circle both as a way to do something she enjoyed, but also as a way for her daughter to learn from other Native women in the community.
“I appreciate how it's inclusive and how it's focused on women and families because I've been mostly a single mom for almost since I've had my daughter,” she said. “I really liked that I could take her because I didn't have child care or family around here that could babysit while I wanted to do, like, a leisure activity.”
The designers and Healing Ribbons members range in age from 5 - 85. Freida Whitehawk, 13, is one of the younger designers. She is a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation.
“My grandma’s going to be so proud of me,” Whitehawk said when talking about her predictions of the runway.
Renee Geller, 66 and of the Omaha Tribe, said she is also looking forward to her family’s reaction.
“For them to see me not only at the fashion show, but in the powwow arena wearing a jingle dress, which is for healing, that it's healing myself, as I wear it and as I dance,” she said. “I hope the people see it because though a lot of us haven't talked about our struggles, people know that some of us have had a hard time, and they will see that, you know, we can do this. And hopefully they think they can do it as well.”
“I'm looking forward to, hopefully, non-Natives and family members to come and appreciate the artistry of this, because I think it's art, you know? And they don't always think of Regalia as art outside of our community, but also to gain appreciation that this is an incredible art form,” Healing Ribbons president Buffalohead-McGill said.
Tickets to the inaugural fashion show are free. All of the designers will model their own creations at the show Sunday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Lied Education Center for the Arts at Creighton University.
