Hopi designer makes high fashion accessible

An example of Wendell Sakiestewa’s “plastisol” screen-printed shirts featuring historic Hopi photographs printed directly onto the clothing. Due to the unique process, the images will not fade. Sakiestewa’s clothing line WEN*SAKS is based out of Los Angeles, Calif.

An example of Wendell Sakiestewa’s “plastisol” screen-printed shirts featuring historic Hopi photographs printed directly onto the clothing. Due to the unique process, the images will not fade. Sakiestewa’s clothing line WEN*SAKS is based out of Los Angeles, Calif.

HOPI RESERVATION, Ariz. - At age 42, Hopi designer Wendell Sakiestewa has made some great strides in blending his Hopi heritage with contemporary design experience and study to the forefront of fashion clothing and an appreciative art world audience.

Featured at the recent Smoki Museum's Sixth Annual Indian Arts Festival, Sakiestewa was extremely busy in his booth, discussing fabric, ideas and design with a fast moving crowd who were purchasing his one-of-kind shirts. The shirts are printed with old Hopi historical photographs using a unique process called "plastisol." He also offered his own blend of super soft long and short sleeved cotton shirts for women that had both puff-paint designs and traditional Hopi kilt patterns screened onto the one shouldered tees.

Originally from Moencopi, Sakiestewa was raised by his grandparents in Phoenix. He attended Alhambra and Maryville High Schools, went onto trade school to study electronics and worked for Phoenix Job Corps and Honeywell building cockpit boxes.

It was his intense focus on engineering and electronics design that caught his initial interest. This propelled him to look into interior design as a further stepping-stone to his eventual career in fashion merchandising.

During his work at Honeywell, Sakiestewa did a bit of interior design work for some of Scottsdale's wealthier clients, with several encouraging him to go back to school to learn more about design concept execution. With that, he went back to Scottsdale Community College.

Sakiestewa's grandmother was a professional pattern maker and seamstress, so as he sat down at a sewing machine to hash out his first original designs, he said, "It just all came flooding back to me ... the experience of being with my grandmother, her meticulous attention to how she cut fabric, how carefully she would measure things. It was really a pleasant memory and I knew this was the right career path for me."

Within six months, Sakiestewa was drawing and giving presentations of his ideas to his teachers in Scottsdale. A visiting designer from California saw Sakiestewa's work and encouraged him to attend the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles where he started designing for wholesale clothing markets.

Four years ago, he decided to go out on his own.

Sakiestewa said that his Hopi heritage, his love of symbolism, shapes and colors from Hopi ceremonies were also a big part of his fashion inspiration.

Sakiestewa is not only interested in designing and creating new clothing ideas but also in how well the fabric performs and how it holds up with different methods of screen printing, which brought him to use the "plastisol" method. This method still requires an original film image, but also goes through a special heating process to seal in the image so that it will never fade.

The shirts are priced from around $60 to $75 apiece and were big sellers. They are offered in a soft toned beige and black.

The women's shirts that Sakiestewa offers have some contemporary design work such as puff-paint to give them a three-dimensional feel and look. Some also have genuine Swaroski crystals or stonework, which gives them a designer edge.

One shirt features an exclusive Hopi kilt pattern on its right side along with a mock-one shoulder fit, which is similar to the real Hopi traditional women's dress type.

Sakiestewa says, "Of course, some of these ideas are traditional in their Hopi roots, but they are also my own version of what I think is appealing and beautiful for design and fit on a woman or man's body."

A black men's designer shirt takes three separate screens to complete. Most of Sakiestewa's designs are eco-friendly.

His formal clothing line WEN*SAKS was featured at the Smithsonian Museum's Clothing Show in 2007-2008. WEN*SAKS has also shown at the Santa Fe Indian Market as well as the Hopi Show at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff and the Pueblo Grande Museum.

After the recent recession, Sakiestewa said he is basically concentrating on re-establishing his clientele and looking for new retail markets since the world economy is picking back up and clients are starting to purchase art objects again.

To see more of the WEN*SAKS clothing line or to order, visit www.hopiwensaks.com.

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