Indigenous boutique owners Liana Shewey and Korina Emmerich want to acknowledge traditions but also push the design narrative
Location, location, location. It can make or break a business. For Liana Shewey and Korina Emmerich, it was a call to action. When a mutual friend told the activists and creatives – Shewey is an educator and Emmerich is a fashion designer – about a newly vacant storefront on the ground floor of her mother’s Manhattan co-op building, the pair, who met five years ago at an Indigenous women’s collective and quickly became best friends, visited the space. It was 350 sq ft – a far cry from the 20,000 sq ft clubhouse of the duo’s wildest fantasies. But something felt right. “We jumped on it,” said Shewey.
The co-op board wasn’t willing to hand the keys over to just anyone. But their friend’s mother is Navajo, and also the board president. Within days the building had its newest tenant: Relative Arts NYC, a boutique that carries pieces by Indigenous designers and also hosts literary readings, album releases and art installations featuring work by Indigenous artists.
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