FASHION ADVOCACY: HOW TEENS USE STYLE TO SPEAK OUT

Compiled by the Motivos team

Jose Ramos, a seventeen-year-old student from Sofia Academy in Philadelphia, PA, and a multi-year participant in Taller Puertorriqueño’s Youth Artist Program (YAP), says you need to keep smiling to get through the pain—the t-shirt he created for Taller’s El Fashion Show encourages wearers and observers to do just that. Last spring, he tried his hand at different design techniques before settling on airbrush to prototype his smile-with-a-pocket shirt, which he also modeled in Taller’s spring 2022 fashion show.

Jose hopes his fashion sparks conversation and connection to safeguard mental health. “Many don’t see mental health as physical, but it can become physical if it’s not paid attention to. I want it to be in conversation,” he says. “The smiley face on my shirt is to encourage others. There are many that care.”

He and other youth in the Youth Artist Program most recently worked with Program Director Ashleen Castillo on a mural to grace the walls of the YAP computer room. They also created a coloring book that focuses on mental health. Now they’re gearing up for El Fashion Show 2023 on May 19. Youths can get involved by signing up for YAP.

Get involved! Taller’s Youth Artist Program offers:

• Sewing and textiles

• Fashion design

• Painting and drawing

• Graphic design & typography

• Sculpture and 3D art

Go to https://tallerpr.org/ for more details.

Across the country in Montana, just outside Crow Reservation, students from Hardin High School pulled off their first Indigenous Fashion Show during Native American Heritage Month in November and are currently preparing for a spring 2023 show. The Motivos youth team hosted student participants on our Team Talk segment via Zoom to learn more.

A TikTok video took students instantly from casual wear to model ready. The fashion show featured white pillars that resemble sculpted ice in stark contrast with a black backdrop behind

What messages are you sending out to the world through the art you create and the fashion you wear? Explore what youth at Motivos, Taller Puertorriqueño and Hardin High School are up to:

Motivos: @motivosmag

Taller YAP: @yaptallerpr

Hardin High School Bulldogs: https://bit.ly/HardinHS the stage. Student models were the bright spots, wearing colorful cloth ing made by local Native designers like Della of Apsaalooke Designs. Traditional patterns and ribbon work held their own on contem porary clothing cuts, bridging generations and carrying mes sages forward through time. “I use a lot of our Crow culture as inspiration but bring it to con temporary times whereas you can wear it in the street. I like to embellish, I’m an accessory person, I add to Della’s styles,” historian and artist Rose William son of Lady Pompadour told us. She was glad be a part of the show, and to expose youth to art and fashion as a way of life and as a business.

“I felt important modeling cloth ing that exhibited my culture,” Angel Little Head, a twelfth-grader, said. Likewise, tenth grade student Day vany Whiteman Runs-Him told vos, “It felt empowering modeling my culture through modern fashion.”

The next project students at Hardin High School shared with on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement to bring attention to crimes perpetrated against women and girls from Indigenous communities nationwide. While many of our readers associate Cinco de Mayo with celebration, in 2017, Montana senators introduced a resolution recognizing May 5 as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. Red is worn to break the silence and demand a crisis mode response from the government to investigate these crimes immediately.

Jose reminds us of the power of fashion: “Others can tell who you are by what you wear. That doesn’t define you as a human, but it does send a message.”

Catch a peek of Ren Wadsworth’s coverage of Hardin High School’s Indigenous Fashion Show on NonStop Local here: