by curators of major museums with a focus on pre-20th century attire. For the most part, these collections failed to take into consideration the shift in clothing trends among indigenous peoples brought about by assimilation policies or by access to tailoring training and industrially produced textiles. However, indigenous-focused museums have featured exhibitions of contemporary Native fashion. For example, the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City's 2017 "Native Fashion Now" exhibit featured Project Runway finalist Patricia Michaels and The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe held exhibits as early as 2007 on Native couture and Institute of American Indian Arts founder Lloyd Kiva New. While Native peoples have always produced clothing, until the twentieth century the garments they made were for personal or ceremonial use. However, forced assimilation policies throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focused on eradicating Native American culture, including religious observance, language, and other traditional practices. Later, policies such as the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act changed the strategy for education of Native peoples, encouraging them instead to reconnect with their cultures, including the creation of traditional dress. In 1942, the American anthropologist Frederic H. Douglas, sought to highlight the beauty of Native American fashion by presenting a fashion show featuring garments made by Native Americans between 1830 and 1950. During the same decade, Lloyd Kiva New, a Cherokee who had graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago began touring throughout Europe and the United States with clothing and accessory lines he had designed, using hand-woven and dyed fabrics and leather crafts. In 1945, New opened a studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, with financial backing from Douglas, which initially focused on belts, hats and purses. Influenced by Navajo medicine bags, his purses, decorated with hand-worked metals became a specialty. Recognizing the need to reduce labor costs, he began combining machine work with handcrafting and instituted an apprenticeship program to meet increasing production demands while gearing his designs for the up-scale market. Gaining coverage from national magazines like Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker, New began selling his bags at the Elizabeth Arden Salon and Neiman Marcus. Expanding into clothing with a focus on classic cuts and simple designs using quality materials, New incorporated woven Cherokee fabrics, bead- and silver-work into a line of coats and dresses for women and men's suits, capitalizing on the luxury clothing market which emerged after World War