Desert Phantom, 2019
for Abasi Rosborough. New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of the buffalo in the winter time.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
–– Crowfoot’s last words, Chief of the Siksika Blackfoot
I grew up in Arizona near several Native American reservations on what had once been their land –– something that always troubled me. There were traces of their existence, but it was fleeting, and receding over time. As long as I can remember I’ve been curious about their history, and while reading a book called ‘Sacred Legacy,’ I came across a quote from a Blackfoot chief.
The words haunted me. They put me into a frame of mind thinking less about the here and now, and more on a monumental time scale, about the brevity of existence in the vastness of the universe. To think that our lives, our entire experience and journey, are but a wisp of a spark caught in a cold wind in the night was powerful.
The ‘Desert Phantom’ collection became almost a meditative response to this idea: The story of a life, a journey, striving for learning, meaning, and understanding –– ephemeral and vanishing, yet eternal.
