"And now, from the people who think they know everything about what we should be wearing, comes a new trend about which we Arizonans might know a bit more.

At Neiman Marcus, just racks away from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's latest leather offering, there's a kicky cashmere shift dress - all geometry in deep red, black and cream - that looks exactly like the Navajo blanket on display in the Heard Museum (hand-loomed in 1880, just so you know).

At Forever 21 in Scottsdale, mannequins wear $8 feather necklaces while posed in positions not unlike a ceremonial dance - and the sign in the window says "Into the Wild." (Made in China, and you don't want to know.)

Diane von Furstenberg is on a $365 "Native Hound" print parade. September style magazines trumpet the look with multipage shopping guides headlined "Hail to the Chief." Teenagers are buying woolly shawls. Shawls!

From the omnivorous minds of fashion designers, who want us in soldier chic one minute and Bollywood brilliance the next, a communal word emerged as the Gospel of Fall: "neo-Navajo!" they declared, flinging Navajo iconography all across the mall.

There are arrows on bracelets and medallions on miniskirts and woven patterns on skinny jeans that cost $660 at Barneys New York.

Even this: "Navajo Hipster Panties," at Urban Outfitters, printed with zigzags and stars, which an online reviewer loves because they make her "bum look delicious." Ahem."

Get the Story:
Neo-Navajo fashion: Trend or tradition? (The Arizona Republic 9/25)