Kerry Hawk Lessard, 50, said she didn’t know if she had a specific style. The Ellicott City resident said what she wears at occasions like the Baltimore American Indian Center’s 50th Year Celebration has more to do with projecting who she is.

“My grandfather was a Shawnee, and my grandmother is Irish-American. We have other family members that married into my grandpa’s family from the Assiniboine and Lakota [tribes]. It’s always been important to me because my grandfather’s family were the people I grew up around,” Lessard explained.

“I always try to wear pieces that reflect my identity as a native person. Whether it’s jewelry, a ribbon skirt or moccasins. Or something that might have belonged to a family member,” she said.

As executive director of Native American Lifelines, an urban health program funded by the U.S. Indian Health Service, Lessard says her clothing and accessories serve yet another purpose.

“Primarily it’s to ground myself in the people that I come from and the culture that I’m from. I always want to remember that’s why I do what I do. As native people, those are also signifiers, especially when you’re in a city and you see someone else wearing native jewelry or moccasins,” she said.

Her Ensemble: Juicy Couture denim shirt from Nordstrom. “Vintage” yellow T-shirt from J. Crew. Ribbon skirt made by an Ojibwe designer, a gift. Moccasins she got at the Navajo reservation in Chinle, Ariz. Beaded pouch necklace made by a woman from the Shawnee tribe, “which is my tribe.” Deerskin pouch necklace she made. Shell disc earrings she bought in Rosebud, S.D. Bailey of Hollywood brown felt hat she picked up in Tucson, Ariz.