Bethany Yellowtail is a fashion designer and founder of Los Angeles-based clothing brand B.Yellowtail. Originally from the Northern Cheyenne and Crow Nations, her brand supports Native American, First Nations and Indigenous entrepreneurs through a digital arts market platform titled “The Collective.”
She joins the CFDA next week for the first part of our webinar series to highlight the work, traditions, and contribution of Native American and Indigenous designers in the American fashion industry. She spoke to us about how her brand and work is centered in community and culture, and how her artistic and business endeavors seek to empower and provide economic opportunities through design and wearable art.
Why did you make the decision to move from designing for a brand to launching your own label B.Yellowtail?
I always wanted to have my own fashion brand. I’ve been dreaming about it since I was a little girl. I learned to sew and make cultural regalia when I was very young thanks to my grandmother and auntie. I even started designing my own clothes in 7th grade thanks to my home economics teacher. However it was after I left home (on the Crow Indian reservation) and entered into the fashion industry when I really started to understand how my role and responsibility as a Native woman could merge with my dreams and desires to create my own label.
Early in my corporate fashion career, I worked for several brands that often appropriated Native American designs. At the time, I was an entry level employee with no power or say in the matter, but it was there I realized I wanted to create a brand that truly represented the culture, stories, and people I come from. I wanted to see myself and the people I love celebrated, respected, supported and to create a fashion platform to be feel proud of.
Although I design for people from all walks of life, for me there is nothing better than seeing Native women feel empowered and celebrated by the clothes they wear. B.Yellowtail is the brand of my little rez girl dreams.
How does your heritage and culture play a role in your design ethos?
My heritage, culture, and personal upbringing are my central foundation. They directly influence my values, guiding principals, and core design pillars, as well as the decisions I make leading a Native-owned business. They are my source inspiration nearly every collection, and are directly tied to the ways I understand myself and the responsibility I have to community. For me, I understand my designs to be connected to the people, to the land, to our ancestors, to our future, and I am one of the many many parts of our continuum. There are so many important teachings, histories and instructions for ways of being embedded inside our cultural designs and I personally try to take great care and consideration in the ways I utilize them.
How are you empowering and supporting other Native American and Indigenous Designers through The Collective?
Creating art and cultural craft is and has always been an integral way of life for Native people to sustain our families and tribal communities. Many of my family members and extended relatives utilize their creativity and craft to pay the bills. However poverty is a major barrier and a reality many cultural artists who come from reservation communities face. The unemployment rates for my tribal communities alone are nearly 70 percent (pre & post pandemic). That means there is not much disposable income and often times creators are forced to sell their work well below it’s actual worth.
In 2016 we launched the B.Yellowtail collective to support Indigenous arts entrepreneurs and help get their work out and accessible to a larger market. It was created as an alternative route for Native artists and businesses to have economic opportunities where they are made priority, can make an actual profit and sustain themselves with a living wage.
Most all of our collective artists are paid on a consignment basis, which means they receive 70 percent of profit from retails sales at byellowtail.com and with every sale, consumers are directly investing in Native people, our businesses, and supporting our culture – without the appropriation.
When we launched, we started with only 10 creators, many of them being my relatives. Since then we’ve supported over 50 artists from all over Indigenous North America, many of them growing beyond our platform to successfully run their own arts business full-time, and many of them have had features in major press publications including Vogue. We’ve also created pathways for collective artists to expand into wholesale distribution with opportunities at The MET, The Field Museum, as well as in B.YELLOWTAIL brand retail collaborations for the Crate & Barrel Kids – formerly The Land of Nod, and most recently with FAHERTY brand (select collective pieces arriving in 20 stores nationwide this summer).
