Model Quannah Chasinghorse

[Tanuki]

https://www.vogue.com/article/quannah-chasinghorse-indigenous-model-profile/amp?__twitter_impression=true

"Growing up, the model Quannah Chasinghorse—whose Indigenous ancestry is both Hän Gwich’in (from Alaska and Canada) and Oglala Lakota (from South Dakota)—rarely saw her culture represented in the fashion she voraciously consumed. “I was obsessed with watching runway shows on television—Dior, Chanel, Prada—and I was always posing for pictures,” she says, but because of this lack of representation, “it was really hard for me to feel like I had the potential to be a model.”

Fast-forward a few years, though, and Chasinghorse, 19 and now living in and working from Fairbanks, Alaska, is one of modeling’s freshest new faces after first being cast in a 2020 Calvin Klein campaign that stressed the importance of voting. A few months later, she signed with IMG Models, and it’s about time. Chasinghorse is breaking barriers in an industry that has long overlooked Indigenous talent.

Armed with her traditional Hän Gwich’in tattoos, the model is at once redefining beauty, honoring a Native practice dating back more than 10,000 years, and challenging the notion that all models should be a blank canvas. Her striking face tattoos—which are called Yidįįłtoo and, in accordance with tradition, hand-poked by a woman, in this case her mother, to commemorate events in one’s life—are proudly displayed as lines on her chin and at the corner of her eyes. “The lines represent overcoming generational and personal traumas,” says Chasinghorse, referring to both colonization and to the prohibition, in recent centuries, of Yidįįłtoo. “To be able to bring [the tattoos] back is a powerful thing—you feel empowered knowing that you’re carrying on a tradition that was meant to be erased.”...(more)

[niyad]

1. Thank you for posting this most imporrtant article. Would you consider cross-posting

in Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in advance. Her story touches on so many issues.

[Celerity]

2. stunning 💙

[Spazito]

3. Long overdue....

Thanks for posting this, it is great to see and it is long overdue.

[mopinko]

4. when i heard about her, i thought about this lady- maria tallchief

there was recently an article about a new festival to honor maria and 4 other native ballerinas known as the 5 moons.
i worked for her husband a few lifetimes ago, so i knew about her even tho i know very little about ballet.
what a shame this young lady didnt know how many roll models were rly out there. and it's not like maria didnt try. she gave her whole post-dance life to it.

she is a stunner.

[burrowowl]

5. Thanks for link