Style show during Cherokee holiday

Style show highlights traditional dress

By Will ChavezA Southeastern-Indian style show presented by the Cherokee Native Art and Plant Society was part of the Cherokee National Holiday’s events this year.

Models of all ages wore clothing from a period ranging from 900 A.D. to present. How clothing and accessories were made and some of the history behind the clothing worn by Cherokee and other Southeastern tribes were explained by an emcee while the clothing was modeled.And:She added trade with Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries at times dictated the clothing worn by Cherokee people. For instance, in the early 1700s when the Cherokee began to trade deerskins for fabric and in the late 1700s when Cherokee women were encouraged to weave, the style of clothing the people wore changed.

Rutherford said the traditional tear dress worn by Cherokee women during the Cherokee National Holiday and other events did not originate until the late 1960s and has evolved over time. The first tear dresses were “shorter and plainer” and now are made with better fabrics and have a more contemporary style, she said.Comment:  For a controversy involving Cherokee clothing, see How Traditional Cherokee Women Dress and Liv Tyler = Cherokee Pocahontas?!

Below:  "Model Catherine Foreman Gray wore a trade shirt, finger-woven belt and a wool wrap skirt that was typical for Cherokee women in the 1700s during a Souteastern-Indian style show Sept. 2. She also wore pucker-toe moccasins and some trade silver." (Will Chavez/Cherokee Phoenix)