Indigenous Oklahoma designer totes her handmade handbags back to New York Fashion Week

Since fashion is ever evolving, Lea McCormick — an emerging, if accidental, handbag designer based in Claremore — is continuing to evolve, too.

A multitalented Muscogee Nation citizen, McCormick, who considers herself primarily an actor, traveled to the Big Apple this week to show her distinctive handbags in her third New York Fashion Week outing.

For the second straight year, McCormick, who taps into her Muscogee heritage when creating her handcrafted handbags, is a featured designer for the Rise NYFW showcase that's spotlighting emerging designers of color.

For her Feb. 9 show, she wanted to show off her evolution as a designer, as well as even more stylish aspects of Native American cultures. So, she took along this year two fellow Oklahoma Indigenous designers, who have spent the past few months helping her devise and create a dozen full outfits, with her signature handbags to match.

"Being an actor is my priority, but lifting others up is important to me as well. ... So, I'm taking 12 Native models from Oklahoma, too," she told The Oklahoman by phone before traveling to New York City.

"It's been fun watching this grow, and I keep thinking, 'Wow, I just made that one bag just to be on a red carpet with it. And it's gotten to this.' It's definitely been unexpected. But I like it, and I like sharing it with others."

When and what is New York Fashion Week?

The first of the two major 2024 fashion seasons where American designers show their latest collections, New York Fashion Week officially runs Feb. 9-14, with designers like Tommy Hilfiger, Carolina Herrera, Michael Kors and many more showing their fall/winter collections.

The star-studded New York Fashion Week provides a showcase for designers' creations for the upcoming seasons, with runway shows for fashion journalists, store buyers and industry influencers. It is one of the four major global fashion weeks, along with London, Milan and Paris.

Created in 2017 to give independent designers an opportunity to showcase their collections to a global audience, Rise NYFW is recognized for prioritizing cultural diversity.

How did an Oklahoma actor accidentally become a handbag designer?

When McCormick was tapped to play a boss lady in the cinematic Christian comedy "W.W.J.R.," she knew she wanted to dress up for the occasion with a handbag that represented her true character rather than just a plain, boring bag.

So, she made one using a pattern and frame she found online for a kiss clasp purse — one with a closure made of two metal balls that lock together — and some Native American fabric adorned with elk teeth.

"I put it on Facebook, which is our refrigerator where we put photos of all our accomplishments now," said McCormick, whose acting credits include the Oklahoma-made movies "Stillwater," "Golden Arm" and "Broken."

"A friend of mine named DezBaa' — she's in 'Dark Winds' with Zahn McClarnon — saw it and wanted one. ... She told some of her friends that are actors, and they all wanted one. Then, I had gotten to know the actresses on 'Killers of the Flower Moon,' and they all wanted one.

"And it exploded from there."

How did an Oklahoma handbag designer get to New York Fashion Week?

Inspired by the response to the first purse she made in December 2021, McCormick started Heruse tos Handmade Handbags — the name means "she is beautiful" in the Muscogee language — and her portable creations were featured in 2022 fashion shows at Okmulgee's Muscogee Nation Festival, where "Reservation Dogs" scene-stealer Dallas Goldtooth carried one of her bags, and at Oklahoma City's First Americans Museum, where another "Reservation Dogs" standout, Nathalie Standingcloud, was a model.

After that OKC show, McCormick's handbags caught the attention of Indigenous Canadian designer Stephanie Crowchild, founder of Stephanie Eagletail Designs. Crowchild, who is from Tsuu T’ina in Treaty 7 Territory near Calgary, Alberta, specializes in custom-made coats based on the infamous Hudson Bay blankets, and she was planning a September 2022 Rise NYFW show at New York Fashion Week's spring/summer 2023 edition.

McCormick flew to NYC to loan Crowchild four bags and watch models take them down the runway. When she got back to Oklahoma, she applied to Rise NYFW, and in February 2023, she returned to New York Fashion Week as a featured designer.

The lifelong maker describes the look of her Heruse tos Handmade Handbags as "a little bit vintage ... and a little bit contemporary with Native American style and whimsy."

How is a Native designer teaming with other Indigenous creatives?

For her 2023 New York Fashion Week collection, titled "My Muscogee" and focused on her own tribal heritage, McCormick created 20 new high-end handbags.

She mostly relied on the models cast by Rise NYFW to show her handbags, and they took to the runway in basic black outfits, which the designer dressed up with beaded collars, miniature gorget necklaces and acrylic Muscogee knot earrings made by fellow Native artists from Oklahoma.

In the past year, McCormick has participated in several Native fashion shows across her home state and launched her debut swimsuit collection, which was featured last summer in Native Max Magazine. In October, Cherokee Nation Film Commissioner Tava Maloy Sofsky carried one of her bags on the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of the Oklahoma-made movie "Killers of the Flower Moon."

So, McCormick went into NYFW 2024 with greater ambitions, inviting two Native creatives based in Owasso — Kelsey Cooper, a Cherokee clothing designer, stand-up comic and film production assistant, and MaKayla Bucktrot, a clothing designer and seamstress who is Yuchi, Creek, Pawnee, Iowa and Kialegee — to collaborate with her.

"I didn't want to do my black dresses that I did last year. Kelsey went as my assistant last year and saved my life through the crazy trenches of New York Fashion Week, and MaKayla, her roommate, has been a seamstress since she was like 11 ... and she does incredible ribbon skirts. So, I asked both of them if they wanted to do clothes for New York this year," McCormick said. "Since we have 12 models, we split them up ... and we're each doing four outfits."

How is Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone helping to spotlight Native fashion designers?

McCormick and her collaborators adopted the theme "Imagine Hollywood Iconic Fashions — Native" for their 2024 NYFW show, taking iconic cinematic looks and giving them a Native American twist. In Bucktrot's case it's a literal twist: She's incorporating a sewing technique she called the Yuchi ribbon twist into some of her designs.

"I just picked from my favorite movies and went from there. ... I picked 'Pretty Woman,' 'Labyrinth' and 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.' Then, my fourth one isn't from a movie, but it's just one of the most popular dresses that's ever been: the 'revenge dress' Princess Diana wore," Bucktrot told The Oklahoman by phone from NYC.

"I didn't ever think I'd be here. It's crazy. ... Last night, I was crying because Kels said that all of Indian Country is watching us. And that choked me up. I have been getting a lot of messages from everybody supporting us, and it's just really exciting."

Cooper took inspiration from the famously fashion-forward film "Legally Blonde" for one of her dresses, which McCormick is pairing with a handbag modeled after a Native American law book.

For one of her runway looks, McCormick recreated the vintage glamour of Marilyn Monroe with a pink strapless gown made in a printed fabric she designed from a photo of a Mississippian period medallion found in a mound in the southeastern United States.

Their show's movie theme is timely, as Lily Gladstone, a historic Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner, has spotlighted Indigenous fashion this awards season. The "Killers of the Flower Moon" star has wowed on red carpets by accessorizing her classy Valentino and Chanel gowns with jewelry from Native designers.

"She's helping us out a lot," Bucktrot said. "That's one of my goals: I want her to wear something of mine on the red carpet."

For McCormick, who gifted Gladstone one of her handbags when they were both working on the acclaimed series "Reservation Dogs" in Oklahoma, it's a thrill to bring other Native creatives along to New York Fashion Week.

"It's more fun to share adventures than to do them by yourself," she said. "We need representation — and what better place to do that but in New York City?"

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Meet the Indigenous Oklahoma designer back at New York Fashion Week