Tell us about Apache Skateboards and Fashion Week.
I’m a designer, photographer, painter, muralist and I run Apache Skateboards. Apache as a brand has survived over 20 years now. We’ve created our own styles and look and our own products that come from the Apache community. Our brand and our team have worked with Volcom, with Smartwater, with Red Bull, with Kia and Verizon. We’ve worked with the Phoenix Suns and the Arizona Coyotes. We’re working with Zumiez now. We’re working with Etnies shoes.
I co-manage a skate team with my son Doug Miles Jr. We’ve produced films for other tribes, other organizations. We produced a feature film four years ago here in the San Carlos Reservation that is now online, called Apache Leap.
For Fashion Week, we’re going to show the Apache Skateboard Zumiez Collection. We’re showing the limited-edition skate shoe that we just designed for Etnies. All the models will be wearing Etnies shoes, and the Apache Etnies shoe will be there.
We’ll be showing some garments that are not yet in Zumiez that people can buy and collect before they get into the store. We’ll have some one-of-a-kind, one-off custom coats and jackets and other accessories.
The skate team, led by Doug, will be doing a demo. Let’s just say there probably will be some skateboarding on the catwalk. There might be some ramps involved, there might be some props involved. I don’t want to give way too much.
I have this phrase where we talk about fashion that says we don’t call it fashion, we call it survival. Not to take away from the fashion, but I feel like for Native people, it wasn’t just fashion that we were involved in. Yes, we were fashionable. Yes, we did have and do have fashions, but I feel like for a lot of people from different cultures, fashion is not just fashion. Fashion is a way we communicate. Clothing is made to last, clothing was made out of leather or maybe metal or jeans. That’s called survival.
I think that’s one of my hot takes. We don’t call it fashion, we call it survival.
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PHOTO DOUGLAS MILES, JR.
