The Red Dress: Symbol to Bring Awareness to Missing Indigenous Women

“This dress is fashioned after the traditional buckskin dresses of the Northern Plains, but made with velvet in powerful electric red. For our necklace, we referenced the Turtle Mountains, the medicine wheel, the cycles of life, and the wild prairie rose. The dress and necklace is the second set that we have designed to bring awareness to the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women from throughout the US and Canada.” J.  R. Metcalfe and T. Jerome, Beyond Buckskin

The Red Dress, II (2019)

 

Excerpt:  The Red Dress II (2019) J.  R. Metcalfe and T. Jerome, Beyond Buckskin

“Edged in a rich matte gold, each bead holds a prayer that these precious souls will be found and justice served. I am grateful for the opportunity to create, always; it is immensely therapeutic for me to go through the process, especially when I think of and pray for the thousands of women who had their power to create unjustly stripped from them.

*The dress will be on display at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND, as part of their exhibit Waasamoo-Beshizi (Power-Lines), which will be on view Jan 31-July 31.

(The first Red Dress was purchased by the Turtle Mountain Community College to be included in their permanent collection.)

Category: Culture