Kaila White

The Republic | azcentral.com

A Chandler designer has taken his Native American fashion line to the upper echelon this week, debuting a piece Thursday that was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum and research complex.

Navajo designer Jared Yazzie, 27, is the founder and owner of OxDx, a street-wear clothing brand for men and women.

He started screen-printing in his house nearly eight years ago, selling his shirts out of the trunk of his car. Now his work is showcased in the Native Fashion Now exhibit that's traveled the country and debuted Friday at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian facility in New York.

"I was real small-time and when the email came up for the opportunity to be in the museum exhibit, I kind of didn’t take it seriously," he said Friday, calling from New York.

"I was a small street-wear brand – the most I’d done was a fashion show at the Heard Museum before, so I never thought a museum exhibit was possible."

For the commission, he created a design depicting a woman tying her hair in a bun as she looks at oil drills piercing land.

"I wanted to depict the impact the land has on us as Native people. We live by it and die by it, the Earth is our mother, and when she is in pain, we are in pain. The woman overlooking the land is Dine and prepares herself for the fight ahead, tying her hair in a tsiiyéeł (traditional Navajo bun)," Yazzie wrote in a post announcing the piece.

Arguably his most famous T-shirt is one that reads "Native Americans discovered Columbus," which has appeared inside Rolling Stone.

That shirt put him on the Native-fashion radar, and now being involved in this exhibit for the last few years has changed his life, he said.

"Being part of this exhibit was a big kick. I’ve been full-time for a year, and that’s been possible from social media and bloggers" noticing and writing about him, he said.

Meeting other famous Native designers in the exhibit has also affected him, he said, noting that he was starstruck by Jamie Okuma, Bethany Yellowtail and Patricia Michaels, who starred on "Project Runway."

The Smithsonian also will sell some of his merchandise in New York and Washington, D.C., for the duration of the exhibit through Sept. 4, including his "Native Americans discovered Columbus" shirt and another that says "MIS-REP," short for misrepresented, with a design that resembles the logos for the Cleveland Indians and the punk band Misfits.

"It’s been amazing," Yazzie said. "I’m just excited that it was on coffee mugs and tumblers – I can picture in my head busy New Yorkers running around with it with my name on it. It sounds good to me."