Quannah Chasinghorse Is 'Gaining Ground' by Jackie Nickerson for Vogue US October 2021

Model Quannah Chasinghorse is styled by Jorden Bickham in ‘Gaining Ground’, a fashion story with coats and ready-to-wear from Burberry, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Valentino — with accessories from Bottega Veneta, Prada, lensed, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello and more by Jackie Nickerson for Vogue US October 2021./ Hair by Mideyah Parker; makeup by Romy Soleimani

The shoot takes place in Paint Mines Interpretive Park, an open space near Colorado Springs, Colorado. At present, archaeologists believe that Native Americans first lived on this land 9.000 years ago. AOC notes that some recent discoveries are backdating the arrivals of human peoples in the Southwest. Today the region is home to the flat earth movement — one of the more challenging anti-science arguments —embraced by large numbers of Trump voters.

Quannah Chasinghorse—whose Indigenous ancestry is both Hän Gwich’in (from Alaska and Canada) and Oglala Lakota (from South Dakota) — shares her thoughts about fashion and her own involvement in the industry as an indigenous person. On the topic of her tattoos, Vogue writes:

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.”