An Interview With Amy Denet Deal
Amy Denet Deal is the founder of 4KINSHIP, a sustainable brand that focuses on Indigenous fashion and art. Additionally, she works to open doors for younger Native generations in the fashion industry and other workforces. Amy Denet Deal has an expansive knowledge on Indigenous culture, the fashion industry, and more. The Garnette Report had the privilege of interviewing her on her values and what’s to come in the future.
Recent Events
We’ve been working really hard on our website and our involvement in the community. We’re trying to balance the work between the two. We partnered with Build Native with Shopify. Shopify has a Native person in a position of leadership to make sure Native entrepreneurs get the support they need. I think it’s the coolest thing in the world that they would commit a position to that. They have so many different areas for diversity and inclusivity.
We re-launched on Shopify about a month ago. I’m having so much fun because it’s such a robust e-commerce platform, in terms of how it connects with so many other areas. I want to lead the way in terms of our e-commerce space really being an educator. I feel like being Indigenous, having 40 years in fashion, I’m probably one of the older people in the group of those who work in the industry.
It’s the idea of bringing reciprocity focus into a kind of colonizer space which is selling stuff. You can reinvest those profits into the next generation. It’s been a real pleasure to be creative in that space because most people just focus on money, growing, and wealth. It’s important to think ‘How can I use all that to reinvest?’ It makes me feel hopeful about what’s going into fashion whenever we can do our work.
This year we distributed 5,000 skateboards in the last two months which was a huge record for us. We did it at Navajo Nation Fairs. We made sure all the kids got skateboards. This is so if they want to participate in that sport, they’re not financially excluded from it. We’re hoping to get another skatepark started in 2025. – Amy Denet Deal
With 4KINSHIP, do you have specific goals for the brand? Is there a specific direction you see it heading in?
I turn 60 this year. There’s these milestones we hit in our life that make us rethink. If I’m looking at the next ten years, for both myself and the brand, it’s building pathways for this next generation. I have a tenure within an industry where I lived and worked all over the world. I was the first Native American to go to FIT. I was probably the first Native American activewear designer. I want to find ways I can utilize those skill sets and that tenure to create pathways into the future for the next generation.
I’m doing a fashion summit at FIT. It’s to talk about what that future could look like whenever we design outside of the white lens. So much of the expectation from Native designers is to have cultural references and icons which is beautiful. However, I think there should also be space to just be simply Indigenous and phenomenal creatives.
That creates more jobs, more opportunity, and it educates the outside world. We’re so expansively creative in so many ways. We’re starting those discussions and finding pathways for young people that live on reservations. They can have the same opportunities to get into these schools and get the same education. That’s going to take some time because they want to extract the culture but they don’t want to pull our young people into those industries.
The goal is, in terms of fighting appropriation, is to get more jobs filled. This is for all types of jobs like marketing jobs, DEI jobs, retail jobs. If all of those were filled by Native folks, they would get opportunities, and it would create a wealth of education within the fashion industry. They only see us the way they see us and take what they want.
I work with so many young people and I’m hopeful about the future. In terms of our next gen work, its within outdoor recreation through Diné Skate Garden Project. That’s a great way to empower young people to fight historical problems we have in Navajo nation. There’s ridiculous rates of diabetes, addiction, teen suicide, depression, self-harm. -Amy Denet Deal
Change For The Better
A sport like skateboarding is amazing where the kids cannot wait to do it. I’ve got to see it in motion times five thousand over the last few months. My brain just changed. I got to see this amazing bubbling of joy that they can’t wait to do something. It’s healthy for them, it changes the way their brain works. It’s self confidence.. It’s a great sport to support the longevity of our tribe.
We’re going to start the first Indigenous skate school. We work with Ideas like that of how we can support these young children. Through our Indigenous Futures Forever, we’ve been doing a performance space. It’s an amazing safe space for them to do whatever they want without any focus on the white lens. We’re hoping to open up more events and space for our young people so we can reinvest back in them.
This is a new thing for me. I’ve never done something like that in my career before, but I really enjoy it. This year, we did an event in February called Illuminate. We did Indigenous Fashion Week in May with an event called Four. That was covered by New York Times’ style section, Washington Post, and CNN Live. We’re starting to really get attention to this Indigenous future. We had a huge show in August during Indian Market and that was just spectacular. It’s a new way of using that space to support them.
It’s incredibly joyful for me to create opportunities for them and to take care of them. This artisan market we’re doing at the end of this month here in Santa Fe needs to be free. They don’t need to have to pay anything to be a part of it. They need to be promoted in the media so all their names are going to be attached. They need safe spaces to stay so we’re paying for all of their hotels. That’s how you would be a good auntie is that you support young people and you support their dreams. – Amy Denet Deal
Current Industry Issues
If you look at DEI in the fashion industry, there’s so much falseness. They utilize these opportunities to promote companies but you have to start asking questions. What’s the give back? How are these young people benefitting? Reciprocity is something where the brand thrives, but you also have to give back to make sure everyone involved in that is pulled up. It’s an important part of the give-back that happens in corporate fashion.
It’s also to ask better questions because we all need to do a better job. Everyone needs to do better to support these next generations. This idea of mutual aid, community supporting community, its how we can break free from what we’ve always been taught. That’s the idea that wealth and power are going to bring you happiness. From my experience at 60, the most joy I’ve had is from giving back to my community and being engaged with them.
It’s so joyful, I can’t wait to wake up every day and run my events. It’s a big way to open up a different perspective. We’re a tiny spec in the fashion world but look at how much attention we’ve got. In our DNA, we are connected to each other in some way, shape, or form. By doing this work, outside of the norm, it’s a beautiful place to be. -Amy Denet Deal
What’s one aspect of the fashion industry you would like to change?
I’d say education. I was adopted out of birth and raised by a white family. I didn’t grow up with my culture. Its lack of education about Indigenous cultures in the United States. There’s 574 tribes that are recognized by our federal government. There’s more that are unrecognized. There’s so many tribes and we’re so culturally diverse. Its just phenomenal when you start digging into that history. I think it is the fact that there’s no education in our fashion schools or our public schools about Indigenous culture.
I’m going to FIT to meet with President Brown. I’m going to highly encourage them to have Indigenous studies. If they could have exchange programs with colleges we have here on the Res like IAIA, we could figure out a back and forth between colleges. Just imagine the knowledge those non-Native kids are going to have by meeting, knowing, developing relationships on Native land with Native people and bringing that back. That would be bridge building between the two.
It’s the chance for Indigenous folks living in remote areas to get the chance to go to schools that are highly technical in fashion. I hope they come home and bring that back to our reservations. Imagine if we come to power and we have the capacity to produce and create in the same way. The non-Native community in the fashion world can be educated through those colleges. That’s a beautiful idea.
FIT doesn’t have a lot of Native kids going to school there and Parson’s doesn’t. My daughter goes to Central Saint Martin’s and fortunately, there’s three kids there that are of Native heritage. We have to open up the conversations about how it’s not there and why it is not there. I and a few other Native designers are the only ones in the industry that get covered. Imagine if you turn it into a full army on a vertical platform where you’re covering all the jobs within corporate fashion. That’s where we don’t have our foot in the door because the colleges never come to Indigenous land to bring kids to the schools.
I’ve never heard of a fashion college showing up on any reservation. That’s number one: we need to be recognized. Why don’t they have a clear pathway to get in? I’m looking at how I can do better and be an advocate for that recruitment and scholarship process. It’s something that can happen very fast and it’s very sensible for everyone so I don’t see why not. It’s a matter of raising awareness, having the conversations, and getting funding. I think it will blossom from there. -Amy Denet Deal
When you first started 4KINSHIP, did you have the same values you have now?
No. I hadn’t reintegrated with my tribe. It started in 2015, more as a sustainable brand, and my daughter was probably 14 or 15. It started off as a mommy-daughter thing where I had moved into sustainable design because I had a child. I started missing working with my hands. My whole corporate career was just meetings and managing people. The brand evolved and I moved to New Mexico by myself. Everything restarted here.
That was a reintegration into my culture after 50-something years. The brand has evolved. COVID happened and Navajo had horrible rates of the disease. It seemed that all the years I had of training had a purpose. I knew how to raise money, buy, and distribute things. I did mutual aid work for the first time in my life. It felt like all the years I worked in the industry was for that moment.
I was able to do things and make sure people were safe. Post-COVID, everything is not going back to normal and it never will be normal again. My job is not equal, it’s not the same and there’s a lot of inequity. -Amy Denet Deal
The Future
My personal focus is next gen. I want to focus on the kids and what I can do to make it easier, safer, more joyful for them. That’s the legacy work that 4KINSHIP does. It’s wealth created with the idea of a clear reinvestment into community solutions. I know how to create wealth from the skills I learned in the industry. I have control over where those funds go and I reinvest in young Indigenous people. I support living artists, those are the people that can benefit from the sale. I have a clear life’s purpose at 60. I’m not going to get caught up in the industry and I’m going to stay on the path I’m on. I hope it inspires others to do more of what I’m doing. -Amy Denet Deal
The featured image for this article is credited to Asylum PR.