ACONAV keeps making headlines. A show-stopping gown by fashion designer Loren Aragon recently dazzled viewers of the 73rd Tony Awards, hosted June 9 held at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, executive director at Arizona State University (ASU) Gammage and ASU’s vice president for Cultural Affairs, attended the star-studded event as Arizona’s only Tony voter, donning a red-and-black gown created specifically for the Tony’s by the founder of Phoenix-based design house ACONAV.
As Native Business Magazine previously reported, ACONAV marks Aragon’s second career. For 13 years, the Acoma Pueblo member designed military applications and weapons simulation programs in Phoenix, Arizona. He couldn’t sew a gown, much less a shirt.
RELATED: ACONAV Founder Loren Aragon on Building a Couture Fashion Brand and Designing for Disney
But a 2008 first-time visit to the Santa Fe Indian Market inspired Aragon to reconnect with his passion for drawing. He quickly found himself sketching fashion designs, and he turned to his mother to teach him to sew.
Aragon started small scale, submitting pieces to fashion shows while holding down his 9-to-5 job.
He participated in his first fashion show at the Pueblo Grande Museum in 2014. His breakout moment came in 2016, when he submitted his first 20-piece collection to the Santa Fe Indian Market.
In 2017, he officially and successfully launched his brand at the acclaimed Phoenix Fashion Week, where he was named Couture Designer of the Year.
Last year, one of Aragon’s gowns was on display as the centerpiece at Disney’s Epcot Center at Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. He was among seven Native artists featured in the Epcot exhibit titled “Creating Tradition: Innovation and Change in American Indian Art.”
Aragon continues to bring in the majority of his revenue from fashion shows and Indian markets, such as the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market, and the American Indian Arts Marketplace at the Autry Museum in California. An e-commerce component on ACONAV.com lists spring / summer 2018 collection designs for sale from $4,075 at the high-end to $975 at the low end.
“Our target customer is around 34 years old. She’s an entrepreneurial woman or holds a leadership position. She’s looked up to by a lot of her peers. She’s established in all that she does. She’s in the income level of around $80,000,” Aragon said.
The name ACONAV represents a cohesion of cultures — a mash up of Acoma (“ACO”) and Navajo (“NAV”), his wife Valentina’s roots.
