Regalia heads to the runway as Anchorage students prepare for Indigenous Fashion Show

Alaska Native students from across Anchorage will line up Saturday morning to walk a runway and show off their mukluks, atikluks, qaspeqs, malagg’aayaq fur hats and other culturally significant regalia as part of the Anchorage School District’s sixth annual Indigenous Fashion Show.

The show takes place Saturday at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School. Indigenous students from all grade levels are invited to participate. Nearly 60 students have signed up already, but officials said any ASD students who show up wearing regalia will be allowed to walk.

Angel Lockwood, a 16-year-old junior from St. Michael, is participating in Saturday’s show. She grew up speaking Yup’ik, unlike many of her classmates. Lockwood learned to weave from her grandmother, using natural dry grasses found along the Norton Sound coast. She said she moved to Anchorage two years ago and still enjoys learning more about her own culture.

On Saturday, she’ll wear a qaspeq made by her grandmother and gloves made by her auntie. She said she feels different when she wears traditional Yup’ik regalia.

“It feels great to do that because, like my ancestors, they would make a lot of them, and it makes me feel more connected,” Lockwood said.

Lockwood took the last few weeks to make a traditional Yup’ik headdress during Gui Kima, and spent almost a year making modern moccasins with intricately beaded flowers on top.

“I love my culture,” Lockwood said.

Cyndi Reeves, the project coordinator for Gui Kima, an after-school program for Indigenous students, spent a recent afternoon reminding students what they need to finish before they can wear their regalia at the fashion show.

Gui Kima means “about myself” in northern Alutiiq, and Reeves said attendance has more than doubled since last year. Students hear from elders, work on making regalia and connect with Indigenous Alaska cultures they may be unfamiliar with.

Reeves is Yup’ik from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and said she wasn’t taught how to bead or sew fur in public schools growing up, but leaned on mentors from around the state to help her learn more about Alaska Native cultures as an adult.

“I grew up not knowing how to do any of the stuff that I teach now,” Reeves said.

Reeves said many of her students may be familiar with regalia, dances and traditions from their family’s own heritage, but are eager to learn about other Indigenous cultures.

She said the atmosphere at the Indigenous Fashion Show is unique in Alaska’s largest city.

“It’s so electrifying feeling the energy from the crowd that right afterwards, you’re like shaking,” Reeves said. “It’s so exciting seeing the parents and the aunties and uncles, all the relatives shouting for their baby that’s walking on the stage, showing their legacy, their heritage.”

Sixteen-year-old Don Heflin, president of the Native Student Leadership Council at Bettye Davis East, won’t be dancing in regalia for Saturday’s fashion show, but he’ll perform a Native Youth Olympics demonstration during the event.

Cook Inlet Tribal Council produced a documentary about Heflin that will play as part of the events surrounding the fashion show on Saturday. Heflin is Inupiaq from the Bering Straits region. His mom originally encouraged him to try Native Youth Olympics when he was very young, but he refocused on training after his father’s death in 2021.

“These games, they brought a lot of joy into my life, especially after my father passed away. It brought community,” Heflin said.

Heflin said he’s looking forward to the fashion show because he relishes every opportunity to learn more about other Indigenous Alaska cultures, and hopes to see Tlingit and Haida regalia from Southeast tribes during the show.

“One of my favorite things about being in Indigenous education is hearing about other people’s cultures and how they’re similar, but different from my own,” Heflin said. “It always feels good to share what you know and share your own culture, because after many years of it going away, it’s very hard to embrace it, and so when people are asking about it, it gives you an opportunity to share.”

When elders teach Gui Kima students a new skill, they don’t repeat their instructions over and over. When they have a question, Reeves will have them ask another student for help. She said that helps teach her students how to share what they know with their peers.

“It’s so exciting seeing students learn about these little projects that they’re doing, making qaspeqs or headdresses or gloves,” Reeves said. “While they’re doing it, they’re sharing their family and their culture and getting hungry for more, and that’s it. That’s the biggest excitement is that they get so hungry that they want to do more.”

Reeves encourages relatives attending Saturday to wear their own traditional garments, and said one of the most popular parts of the event is a photo background where families can pose in their regalia.

The show will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School.

About 70 vendors will also be present for a craft fair for artisans, which runs from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.