Yesterday my BFF and biggest fan Marj texted me this image from the Ecko outlet in Washington. I believe my exact response was “OMG wtf?!?!” Notice at the bottom the tagline is “Party your face off.” Yeah, not offensive at all. So I turned to the googles to see what this was all about. A quick search brought me to …
Thawing the Frozen Indian: Brown University’s new anthro exhibit
The same day as our Crooked Arrows adventure last weekend, Mikaela and I also hit up the Haffenreffer Anthropology museum at Brown to check out their new student-curated exhibit: “Thawing the Frozen Indian: From Tobacco to Top Model.” Dr. Hoover, one of the faculty members at Brown, had mentioned to me at Harvard Powwow (she was the Head Lady Dancer) …
Tracing the Urban Outfitters case and the role of Native social media
Yesterday, an awesome, awesome reader named Thelma sent this Prezi over, it was her final presentation for a course in grad school. It’s a presentation that visually traces the whole Urban Outfitters case through the lens of social media, highlighting the role blogs and other Native media outlets had in driving the story. It’s really cool to see it all …
Anthropologie "Haida Poncho"–is Haida the new Navajo?
A couple of weeks ago, I drew attention to how obsessed Urban Outfitters is with the term “Navajo” to represent a catch-all stereotypical southwest/plains asthetic. Then this week, reader Julia sent me a link to the Anthropologie website, with several “Native” inspired pieces. The one that caught my eye was the “Haida Poncho,” shown above. I just thought it was …
Urban Outfitters is Obsessed with Navajos
“Navajo Nations Crew Pullover“ A search for “Cherokee” on the Urban Outfitters website reveals 1 result. A search for “Tribal”: 15. A search for “Native”: 10. “Indian”: 2. But Navajo? 24 products have Navajo in the name alone. This post started as a massive Urban Outfitters take-down, I spent an hour or so last week scrolling through the pages of …
Uh-oh, I just shopped at Urban Outfitters
I’m really hating Urban Outfitters right now. Their endorsement of the “tribal” trend is seriously out of control, and seems to only be getting worse. So today I stopped in to the store near my office to check out for myself what all of my friends had been emailing me about. And it was bad. Bad enough that I will …
Let’s Talk About Pendleton
(look from Pendleton’s new “Portland Collection” for Fall 2011. Source here.) Last night I was cold. So cold, in fact, that I had to pull out not one, but two, of my Pendleton blankets to add some extra warmth to my bed. As I shook them out and laid them on my bed, I thought about how special these blankets …
Daily Encounters and Activist Fatigue: The Girl with the Headdress Shirt
Yesterday morning I walked into my 7:15 am “Total Body Workout” class at the gym, laughing and joking with my friend. As I turned to get my hand weights and mat, my gaze fell upon a girl in the class…wearing this shirt. I sighed and wrinkled my nose, but turned back to my friend to continue our conversation. A few …
The Ultimate Tribal Fashion Roundup (June 2010 version)
(TNA Spring Catalogue) It’s been a while since my last tribal fashion roundup back in March, and even longer since I first questioned the emergence of Native themes in fashion back in January. The trends don’t seem to be slowing down, and if the prevalence of the hipster headdress is any indication, they might be sticking around for even longer. So …
It starts with a trip to Urban Outfitters
I was killing some time a few days ago and wandered into Urban Outfitters in Harvard Square. It’s no secret that many hipsters have an obsession with all things Native (more on that in another post), but I was a little surprised at how many examples I found. The following were in the home decorations section. This dream catcher (in …