Fashion writer Niya DeGroat sat down with Orlando Dugi to talk about his queer background, his design aesthetic, and how he has been passing the time during quarantine.

First-person account of the creative personality Niya DeGroat for the queer issue of Native Max Magazine.

“I grew up with the curiosity to explore and to create,” says designer Ernesto Fernandez. The 47-year-old School of Fashion alumnus has been staying busy designing table accessories for Von Gern Home while quarantined in New York City. “I am a creative consultant. I met the owner last year through a mutual friend. She needed someone to help her with color stories and new designs.” Prior to his position with Von Gern Home, and over the span of sixteen years, Fernandez spearheaded some of the wor

Growing up on the Navajo reservation, television was my only resource to the outside, American world. From Barney to soap operas to Oprah Winfrey, everything on the TV screen captured my imagination. Eventually, I started to notice something was missing: people who looked like me. Unless of course, I flipped the channel to a Western only to see John Wayne killing “savages” left and right. Except, those weren’t really Indians; they were white actors in red face and cheap wigs playing “Cowboys and