Patricia Michaels | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1966 (age 59–60) New Mexico, U.S. |
| Citizenship | Pueblo of Taos [1] and American |
| Education | Institute of American Indian Arts Chicago Art Institute |
| Known for | Native American fashion, textile arts |
| Notable work | Tantoo in Flight (2023) [2] |
| Partner | James Duran [3] |
| Awards | New Mexico's Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (2023) [4] Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Living Treasure (2024) [1] |
| Website | patricia-michaels |
Patricia Michaels (born 1966, New Mexico) is a Native American fashion designer who works under the fashion label PM Waterlily. She is a citizen of the Pueblo of Taos. [1]
Michaels was the first Native American to appear on the popular fashion design-focused television series, Project Runway . A finalist on season 11, [1] she returned to compete in Project Runway All Stars . [5] She has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including in South Africa and New Zealand. [6]
Patricia Michaels was born in 1966 [7] in New Mexico to Eddie Michaels (Polish-American) and Juanita Turley (Taos Pueblo). [8] Her stepfather, Frank Turley, was a blacksmith. [8] She grew up on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where her parents owned an art gallery. [6] She often visited Taos Pueblo and, as a teenager, moved there to live with her maternal grandparents, [3] Ben and Manuelita Marcus. [8]
Dyslexia made schoolwork challenging for Michaels, [9] but she graduated from Santa Fe High School. In 1985, she apprenticed in costume design at the Santa Fe Opera. [6] She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where she joined the fashion collective "Native Uprising", led by instructor Wendy Ponca (Osage). [9] [10] IAIA co-founder Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee Nation [11] ) told Michaels, "First Santa Fe and then Paris!" [8] After IAIA, she went on to study at New's alma mater, the Chicago Art Institute. [9]
In 2001, Michaels traveled to Milan, Italy, where she apprenticed with a tailor. [6] She then moved to New York with her two young children. [6]
Through PM Waterlily, Michaels creates ready-to-wear fashion, couture fashion, jewelry, and accessories. [1] She specializes in hand-painted silks. [1]
At the 2010 Santa Fe Indian Market, Michaels won best of the textiles classification with a contemporary design which was seen as "a new Native chic." [9] This local breakthrough paved the way for her 2013 participation in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. [9]
In March 2015, Michaels took part in the Stars of Project Runway fashion show during Fashion Week El Paseo. [12] In September 2016, Michaels held a fashion show of her work at New York Fashion Week. [13] Some of Michaels' designs were featured in the 2017 SWAIA Haute Couture Fashion Show in August 2017. [14] Later that year, she was one of ten designers to represent the United States at World Fashion Week, Paris 2017. [14]
In 2023, Michaels designed a dress, titled "Tantoo in Flight", for Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal to wear to the premiere of Killers of the Flower Moon at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. [2] [15] [16] The dress, which was inspired by men's eagle headdresses, featured eagle feathers on the skirt. [17] Cardinal wore the dress again for the Santa Fe Indian Market Gala in August of that year. [18] In April 2024, Michaels took part in the first SWAIA Native Fashion Week in Santa Fe. [1] [17] [19]
Michaels became the first Native American designer to participate in Project Runway, an Emmy Award-winning reality television in which diverse fashion designers compete against each other. [1] She competed in Project Runway season 11, which aired in 2013, and was runner-up.
In 2014, Michaels returned to the show for Project Runway All Stars . [3] [5] Her appearance on the show helped expose new audiences to Native American fashion. [9]
In 2019, Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), New Mexico's first Native congresswoman, now Secretary of the Interior, commissioned Michaels to design a chair as part of the "A Seat at the Table" art installation at the Edward Kennedy Institute in Massachusetts. [20]
In 2020, Michaels took part in a project organized by Naomi Campbell, in which artists created face masks to raise money for charities. [20]
In 2013, Taos named Michaels the Citizen of the Year, [5] and in 2014, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian gave her their inaugural Arts and Design Award. [21] The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation chose Michaels to deliver the keynote address of their Millennium Scholars Program in 2016. [22]
In 2023, Michaels received New Mexico's Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. [4] The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture named Michaels a Living Treasure in 2024. [1]
She married painter Tony Abeyta (Navajo), whom she divorced in 2008. [8] The couple has two children: a son, Gabriel Abeyta, and a daughter, Margeaux Abeyta, [23] both of whom are also artists. [4] After living in Santa Fe for years, she moved back to Taos Pueblo in 2023, [4] where she lives with her partner James Duran. [3]