Dream Weaver

Naiomi Glasses was born with a craniofacial disorder that caused her to look different from other kids. But her family made her feel so loved that it wasn’t until she went to preschool at 5 that she really felt different.

“A little girl in my class asked, ‘Why are you so ugly?’” Glasses recalls.

Fortunately, her medical team at Phoenix Children’s had prepared her for such comments. “I just told her, ‘I have a bilateral cleft lip and palate. My doctors are fixing it. Do you want to be friends?’” Glasses says.

“Fixing it” consisted of several surgeries between infancy and adulthood. Glasses’ final surgery was at 21. She considers herself lucky to have gotten the care she needed at Phoenix Children’s over the years, especially considering her family moved from Mesa to Dinétah (Navajo Nation)—six hours away from Phoenix Children’s—when she was in grade school.

“I’ve met a lot of kids who stop getting treatment after the initial necessary procedures because they can’t afford to travel for their care,” Glasses says. That’s why, when she was named Polo Ralph Lauren’s first-ever artist in residence, Glasses recommended that Phoenix Children’s Foundation receive a portion of the proceeds of one of her clothing collections. 

A looming love

Glasses began weaving at a young age, having learned the art from her paternal grandmother. “It was very soothing, very meditative,” Glasses says. “I just really enjoyed it and loved taking inspiration from nature and my culture.”

Glasses fell so in love with weaving that she wanted to make it her life’s work. Of course, she found out soon enough there wasn’t much money to be made in the artistry. “It took almost a month to make a single piece, and my parents pointed out that I’d never be able to sell my work for enough to live on,” she says. “They didn’t want me becoming a starving artist. So I decided to become a designer instead.”

Her inspiration

Glasses worked with Lauren and his design team for two years on three separate Polo Ralph Lauren x Naiomi Glasses collections, the first of which dropped in December 2023. With the theme of “Love of the Land,” it celebrates her homeland.

“This first drop of the collection is truly a love letter to the land,” Glasses says. “When I think of the land, I think of my family. It’s a way to show love for them and just how interconnected everything is.”

Where the first drop’s earthtones are subdued, the second drop is anything but. “Color in Motion” is a nod to another of Glasses’ long-time loves: skateboarding. “There are parallels between weaving and skateboarding,” Glasses says. “Both are very meditative. You can ride and ride, weave and weave, and just get lost in them.”

Giving back in more ways than one

A portion of the proceeds from this second collection goes to the Phoenix Children’s Foundation Patient and Family Assistance Funds for Native American Families and the Center for Cleft and Craniofacial Care. The money raised is used to alleviate financial barriers such as housing, transportation and treatment costs for Indigenous families seeking care for children with cleft lips and palates.

“I’m just so happy I can give back,” Glasses says. “I feel like I’m part of something bigger, and that means everything to me.”

Glasses’ collaboration with Polo Ralph Lauren is about more than fundraising to her. It’s about representation, not only as a Diné but also as someone who was born with a cleft lip and palate. “I just think it’s really important to have the representation I wanted to see as a kid,” she says. “If I had seen someone like me going out there doing these things as a kid, I think I would’ve had more confidence to feel accepted in these places.”

Drop three, “Denim Daydream,” launched in August 2024, rounds out the three-part collaboration and celebrates Glasses’ longtime love of rodeo on an all-indigo color palette.