"Well hello stranger!"That's the sound of me re-entering the Beyond Buckskin website after being absent for, oh, six weeks or so.
But I haven't been 'really' absent. The last time that I published on this site was when I was sitting in my hotel room at Buffalo Thunder Resort. I was in Santa Fe for Indian Market. We had just launched the Paul Frank x Native Designers collection, and, little did I know, time would fly, and here I am.
I have LOTS to catch up on - there's been fashion shows, launches, new collections, interviews, national and international coverage of Indigenous fashion designers, and the issue of cultural appropriation is still being debated.
Though it may appear I have been slacking, I haven't, I promise. The Paul Frank x Native Designers launch consumed a good chunk of time, and the rest of my time was filled with promotions, PR, social media upkeep, interviews, filling orders, customer service, photo shoots, event planning, artist meetings, future projects (dudes, 2014 and 2015 are looking sexy, just fyi), and boutique site maintenance.
In fact, I've begun the process of revamping the boutique site for Fall/Winter. There will be new items and promotions throughout the month of October, which I'm pretty pumped about. The first is our annual heightened attempt to educate about that 'explorer' (read: murderer) Christopher Columbus. Every year we celebrate the anniversary of his arrival to the Americas. Why? He was no hero. I get the notion that we all want a holiday, but seriously, we need to flip this and reconsider the story of discovery. Navajo artist Jared Yazzie bring us his witty take on the encounter with these sexy and smart tanks and tee.
You can get your "Native Americans Discovered Columbus" gear at this link. Want more educational tidbits? I like Indian Country Today's 7 Videos to Watch on Columbus Day, which includes this important video by students from my alma mater, Dartmouth College:
