A Celebration of National Native American Heritage Month

Amy Denet Deal is a Diné (Navajo) designer, activist, and social entrepreneur who reconnects heritage, creativity, and community through her Indigenous fashion brand, 4KINSHIP, leading a sustainable fashion revolution. After a successful career as a design executive for global brands such as Puma and Reebok, Denet Deal shifted course in 2019, relocating from Los Angeles to New Mexico and reconnecting with her Diné roots. Raised by an adoptive non-Native family, she reclaimed her identity and adopted a new name to honor her heritage. 

In 2015, she founded 4KINSHIP, a sustainable artwear brand rooted in upcycled, one-of-a-kind kind designs that reimagine textiles from the past. Through 4KINSHIP, Denet Deal uplifts Indigenous creatives, amplifies cultural storytelling, and builds pathways for community resilience and next-gen leadership.

Her journey has been defined by showing up for her community with love and action. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Denet Deal mobilized and pivoted her company to support Diné families, raising over $1.2 million in relief funds, distributing more than 1 million masks and other PPE, and guiding over 80,000 units of in-kind donations of food, hygiene, and essential supplies across the Navajo Nation.

In 2021, she created Diné Skate Garden Project, and in 2022 built the Two Grey Hills Skate Park in partnership with the Two Grey Hills/Toadlena community on Navajo Nation and supported by the Tony Hawk Foundation. The skate park has since become a hub of physical and mental wellness, creativity, and empowerment for Diné youth. To date, the project has distributed over 8,000 skateboards to Indigenous youth, providing equal access to the transformative sport of skateboarding and offering free weekly mentorship programs.

Denet Deal’s leadership and vision have been recognized widely. She was honored as a WebMD Health Hero Trailblazer (2021), named one of Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Women of Impact (2021), and celebrated as the first Native American CNN Champion for Change (2024) for her vision of uniting sustainable design, community advocacy, and Indigenous self-determination.

Renee Hunter is a trailblazing fashionista and an enrolled member of the federally recognized Shinnecock Nation of Southampton on Long Island, New York. Hunter began her career as a successful model in New York City. Signed to the Mannequin agency, she graced numerous runways and the pages of print media like Vogue, WWD, and the New York Times, working in New York and, on occasion, Paris. Hunter then spent 26 years in fashion management, working for some of the top names in luxury retail, including Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, where she rose to fashion director. She has also worked as a buyer and an entrepreneur; and for more than a decade, she shared her expertise with students, working in academia as an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, at Pratt, where she served as a design critic, and with LIM College.

Joshua Whitehead is an assistant professor in the Communication Design Pathways program at FIT, dedicated to advancing inclusive, forward-thinking design education. Whitehead’s first nation is the Choctaw Nation. His work bridges classroom and community through real-world collaborations, curriculum development, and mentorship. He has led impactful student exhibitions at the Art and Design Gallery at FIT and co-led FIT’s first exhibition with a First Nations university. This was a collaboration with the Jewelry Design program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Sante Fe, New Mexico, for the exhibition Lighted Earth.

Outside of FIT, he is the principal of Best Practices, a design studio whose client roster includes the First American's Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian. From exhibitions to brand identity, his design practice and teaching are rooted in storytelling, equity, and innovation.

Deirdre Sato, whose degrees include Fashion Design AAS from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), recently retired as Dean for International Education at FIT. She was responsible for comprehensive internationalization that supports the college’s strategic goals for a strong global presence. An administrator with 34-plus years of experience, Sato held senior positions in international education at Purchase College, SUNY, Pace University, and Parsons School of Design. She was chair of the SUNY Council on International Education, held leadership positions with NAFSA: Association of International Educators, and has been a trainer and speaker for both organizations and also served on the Executive Committee for International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI). Sato earned PhD and MA degrees from New York University and a BA from Cornell, and studied at Sophia University in Japan. She spent six years in the fashion industry as a designer/entrepreneur.

Drew Woodson is the youth and education coordinator for the American Indian Community House. He is a member of the Te-Moak Band of Western Shoshone people of Nevada. A writer, director, and educator, Woodson has been devoted to the practice of Native representation in media, arts, and academia. As an educator, he has worked with the Native Student Development Office at University of California, Berkeley; the Native American Youth Summer Camps with Alter Theater; and, most recently, New York University.

In the weave of rebellious threads, stories come alive. Products of My Environment x The Son of Picasso blends art, culture, and defiance into every piece. Meet Ben Nelson, aka The Son of Picasso, a federally recognized Kiowa artist with Diné, Taos Pueblo, and Delaware heritage. A Southwestern Association of Indian Arts award winner, The Son of Picasso blends fine art, graffiti, and streetwear to create bold, thought-provoking designs.

Originally from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and now living between Los Angeles, New York City, and Richmond, Virginia, Lucaa is the brainchild of singer/producer Stepha, a two-spirit Afro-Indigenous artist of A Ni Sa Ho Ni (Cherokee-Blue/Medicine) clan and Arapaho ancestry. They create genre-bending indie/alt-pop music with raw and deceptively deep songwriting that pulls from their inner workings, culture, and experiences as a young model and queer BIPOC artist. Influenced early on by their father (a backup singer for Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, and Michael Jackson) and mother (an opera singer) and by off-kilter artists like Hayley Williams and Regina Spektor, Lucaa takes a grungier approach to alt-pop, with organic production led by Stepha’s intuition and vocals reminiscent of a lullaby.

After SXSW 2024, Lucaa garnered a major-label offer, high-profile performance opportunities, branding campaigns with Leica Cameras and TurboTax, and invitations to appear in publications such as Reserved Magazine, Vogue Japan, WWD, The New York Times, and Service95. A mini-stroke in early 2025 briefly paused their career, but Lucaa has come back strong—with an international tour and a performance at the history-making kick-off show for the inaugural Indigenous New York Fashion Week.