Originally published in Vogue Italia in 2016, This essay features interviews with some of the most talented Black designers in fashion to address how the Black Lives Matter Movement used fashion, then, to push the agenda that is most prevalent today.
Video by Kevin Spence featuring ’Til Infinity by Samson Produced by Juzz 1 Photographed by Drake Masters Styled by James R. Sanders Models Khalia Abner and Brandon Davis
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” — Desmond Tutu
Summer’s Fashion Weeks are always a favorite among the industry. Warmer weather allows for more freedom with cuts and colors and this past season was no exception. Fashion’s in-crowd trotted to Skylight Clarkson Square for New York Fashion Week: Men’s.
Though the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America)-produced gathering is still young, New York is catching on with increasing numbers each season.
Red bottoms scuffed from the asphalt, and sandals with straps clinched for dear life — along with Margiela sneakers, and Balmain boots — ruled the lenses of street style photographers capturing the best versions of each of the aforementioned brands.
But there was something off about the opening day and there were mixed feelings about what it meant for fashion.
Hannah Stoudemire, a stylist at Lanvin’s Flagship store on Madison Avenue in New York along with others in and out of fashion, stood tall in shirts with signs that read, “Philando Castile,” “Sandra Bland,” and “Walter Scott.” Stoudemire’s shirt read, “Stop Killing Us!”
The Golden Youth in Paris during the era of Louis XVI became famous for their fashion, using it to speak to who they were politically. Flash forward several years later, members of the Black Panther Party did the same dressed in all black with berets and rifles as their accessories of choice.
Fashion has always been used as a form of expression.
Revolution.
There was a feeling of uncomfortable necessity that summer day.
It was a silent protest, but the impression was as loud as a Jeremy Scott original.
“Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action.” — Malcolm X
Fashion loves a good trend but the Black Lives Matter Movement, which started as a hashtag isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With numbers of slain black men and women increasing, designers are beginning to take notice. More importantly, they’re beginning to put fashion on notice.
Hood By Air, Telfar, Wales Bonner, Omondi and Brother Veilles are all working towards changing the narrative of how fashion relates to Blackness as a purchasing powerhouse and unsung pioneering trendsetter. Pyer Moss and its designer Kerby Jean-Raymond produced an entire collection around that very thing.
“Around the time I was working on SS16, the news cycle was pissing me off. Mike Brown and Eric Garner’s cases were the biggest heartbreaks for me and I looked around and thought why isn’t anyone else doing anything?” says Raymond.
Told in two parts (one collection during Fashion Week: Men’s, the other during the womenswear shows), Raymond in collaboration with Gregory Siff, introduced the intimate stories of Ota Benga and Saartjie Baartman, both Blacks who were on display in zoos. Their story of incarceration and racial injustice meshed well with the more recent Black Lives Matter.
“The clothing consisted of nets, straps, buckles and different elements that represented bondage or exhibitionism. I wanted to marry the stories of Ota and Saartjie to Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner whose bodies were left tragically on display after they were murdered,” says Raymond.
“I’ve always had questions about what it meant to be a protester, to be in the minority. Are the people who are trying to find peace, who are trying to have the Constitution apply to everybody, are they really the radicals? We’re not protesting from the outside. We’re inside.” — Gil Scott Heron
Maxwell Osbourne, one half of the creative team behind Public School, and DKNY, penned an open letter over the summer in W Magazine in which he questioned his role in fashion and his responsibility as a Black man.
“I decided that I could no longer just sit on the sidelines. I left my office in the Garment District, called a group of friends — Black, white, Asian, mixed — and we all headed down to Union Square together to join hundreds of others in a peaceful protest of the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile,” Osbourne writes.
When Stoudemire sent the invitation for the protest, it went out to well over 100 people. Those invited were encouraged to invite others. And while many RSVPed, few attended. But Stoudemire was more surprised by the minimal amount of support from fashion’s Black glitterati.
“A lot of Black attendees wanted to distance or disassociate themselves from our protest. I figured they didn’t want to cause friction between their white peers that they were attending fashion week with,” Stoudemire says.
Fallout from protest is to be expected — which is why Raymond wasn’t surprised by the death threats he received after producing his collection. One buyer from London dropped the Pyer Moss account.
“Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other people’s freedom as well. The victory of oppressed people anywhere in the world is a victory for Black people. Each time one of imperialism’s tentacles is cut off we are closer to liberation.” — Assata Shakur
Both Stoudemire and Raymond agree that fashion has a responsibility of inclusion where Blacks are concerned.
In 2015, the luxury goods market (which includes fashion) raised 3 percent making it worth $224 billion according to consultantcy.uk.
“Think about how much fashion profits from Black culture and how underrepresented we are in the industry. If you insist on using Black celebrities to peddle your merchandise and add a cool factor to your front row, it is indecent to not care about the plights of that person’s community,” Raymond says. This year, the buying power of blacks is slated to reach $1.2 trillion and $1.4 trillion by 2020 according to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.
“Fashion is always at its best when it looks outside of itself for inspiration and holds up a mirror to society.” — Maxwell Osbourne
