Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a collaborative project between a museum anthropologist and Anishinaabe community artists who aim to revive the artistic and cultural traditions of the Anishinaabe strap dress after a one hundred year hiatus.

Paper long abstract:

The strap dress was an indigenous Anishinaabe dress form prior to European contact, but Anishinaabe women ceased to wear it early in the twentieth century. Now it is virtually a foreign sight at cultural and ceremonial events, where Anishinaabe women wear a variety of regalia styles associated with powwow dances. This paper presents a collaborative project between a museum anthropologist and Anishinaabe community artists who share the common goal of reviving the historic Anishinaabe strap dress to once again become a living art and dress practice. When revitalization is the goal, the stakes are higher for rigorous museum, art historic, ethnohistoric and ethnographic research. However, it has been challenging to find reliable evidence for the pattern pieces and decorative treatments used through various stages of Anishinaabe colonial history. Another difficulty has been to find historically accurate materials to recreate styles today that would have met ancestors' standards of excellence. Both natural and manufactured goods used in these dresses are not attainable on commercial markets. Finally, due to its hiatus of several generations, it has been difficult to convince some Anishinaabe community members that the strap dress is part of their forgotten heritage. Despite these obstacles, strap dress sewing workshops have met with success by engaging Anishinaabe women in learning the clothing traditions of their ancestors and bringing them forward into the present day with creativity and pride.