Native/American Fashion 1 | Welcome and Opening Remarks

The symposium Native/American Fashion: Inspiration, Appropriation, and Cultural Identity explores fashion as a creative endeavor and an expression of cultural identity, the history of Native fashion, issues of problematic cultural appropriation in the field, and examples of creative collaborations and best practices between Native designers and fashion brands. In this segment, Kevin Gover, director of the National Museum of the American Indian, and Ronald Milon, chief diversity officer of the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, welcome the audience and speakers. Kathleen Ash-Milby, associate curator of the National Museum of the American Indian, provides opening remarks.

Kevin Gover (Pawnee) has guided the museum through the opening of several critically acclaimed exhibitions and major initiatives since he began as director in 2007. A former professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, he served on the faculty of the university’s Indian Legal Program. From 1997 to 2000, Gover served as assistant secretary for Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior. A presidential appointee, he was responsible for policy and operational oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where he oversaw programs in Indian education, law enforcement, social services, treaty rights, and trust asset management.

Ronald Anthony Milon is the chief diversity Officer at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York. Milon is a graduate of the College at Brockport of the State University of New York system. He holds master’s degrees from the New School in New York and the University at Buffalo, and earned his PhD from Capella University.

Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo) organized the New York presentation of "Native Fashion Now." She has helped produce numerous contemporary art exhibitions at the museum, including "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist" (2015) with co-curator David Penney, "Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family" (2014) as curatorial liaison, "C. Maxx Stevens: House of Memory" (2012) and "Off the Map: Landscape in the Native Imagination" (2007). Ash-Milby is a recipient of two Secretary of the Smithsonian’s Excellence in Research Awards for her exhibition and publication "HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor" in 2011 and for the publication "Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist" in 2016.

This event was webcast and recorded in the Diker Pavilion of the National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center in New York City on April 22, 2017.