“You Are On Native Land” & the importance of leading with storytelling
In episode 225, Kestrel welcomes Chantel Keiko Ricks, the Distribution Manager & Sustainability Lead at Urban Native Era, to the show. Based in Los Angeles, Urban Native Era specializes in clothing design and content to increase the visibility of Indigenous Peoples.
“We pride ourselves in providing tools, resources, highlighting thought leaders, sharing about changemakers and being a source for Indigenous perspective on society’s current events — and that is us providing our community with what’s needed to reclaim one’s culture, reclaim identity and reclaim Indigenous story through accurate representation.”
-Chantel Keiko Ricks, Sustainability Lead at Urban Native Era
URBAN NATIVE ERA
On this week’s show, Chantel shares more on how until COVID-19 arrived, she had been studying film in grad school at San Diego State. But, the pandemic paired with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement led her to explore how she could help in some way in a social activism setting — this led her to reconnecting with Joey Montoya, founder of Urban Native Era, a friend of hers from college.
Kestrel and Chantel talk a bit about thrifting / vintage, and how that’s such a massive part of the way they both shop, because they love discovering unique pieces that nobody else has.
Additionally, Chantel shares more on some of the small steps she is helping Urban Native Era take to reduce their environmental impact, from removing all plastics from their packaging to integrating organic cotton and other lower impact fabrics into their future collections.
Project 333, minimalist fashion challenge that Chantel did to help explore her relationship with her clothes — listen to our Conscious Chatter episode with founder of Project 333 here
“The company actually came through first and foremost journaling these events [Indigenous-led movements], and the clothing part of the company was not in the original inception — which I find probably the most powerful part about the brand is that it’s about storytelling and awareness more than anything else.” -Chantel speaking about Joey, the founder’s story
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P.S. If you want to connect, send me a DM on Instagram @consciouschatter! <3 Kestrel