First Native American Fashion Magazine Native Max Launches Online (Photo : Native Max)

The first ever Native American magazine named Native Max which focuses on indigenous people; places and cultures with the same sleek photography found in fashion magazines but without the stereotypical headdresses and tomahawks sometimes seen in the mainstream media was launched today.

Kelly Holmes, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, spent most of her spare time going through popular fashion magazines like Vogue and Seventeen and was always disappointed to the that the pictures and stories were of little relevance to her and she could barely identify with them. Hence, she came up with this idea of a Native American fashion magazine that would focus on "indigenous people, places and cultures with the same sleek photography found in fashion magazines but without the stereotypical headdresses and tomahawks sometimes seen in the mainstream media was launched today."

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"There's really no magazine, a Native-owned and operated, Native-designed magazine. There's nothing like this magazine out there. The ones that do have stuff focused on younger people, they're really vulgar and very revealing," said Holmes, 21, who now lives in Denver.

Rhonda LeValdo, president of the Native American Journalists Association, said Native Max and other Native-focused media show American society that Native Americans are regular people, too.

"They want to be models, movie stars, artists. I think that's showing the regular side as opposed to that stereotype of just showing us in our dance regalia," she said.

"I like how we want to involve a lot of people in the community and get ideas from them," said Gallegos, a member of the Santa Ana Pueblo and Jicarilla Apache tribes. "I also like the aspect of getting to know different artists and Native people around the country and how they're contributing to their people in different ways."

The first issue of the quarterly magazine features Mariah Watchman as the cover model. Watchman, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation out of Oregon, catapulted to fame in Indian Country after becoming the first Native American woman to compete on "America's Next Top Model."