I don’t design clothes for the Queen; but for the people who wave at her as she goes by. -Willi Smith
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Fashion Culture | Battle of Versailles: ‘This Was the Real America, An America They Haven’t Seen’
A passionate declaration from Bill Cunningham, American fashion photographer of the New York Times, who remembers that the Black fashion models at the Battle of Versailles fashion show brought together a cultural movement that not only marked a new era in fashion, but was a defining moment in racial equality.
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Fashion Culture | The Empowering Effect of Ebony Fashion Fair
From civil rights to the catwalk, Ebony Fashion Fair defied all odds and left an empowering effect on the African American community. The cumulative effect of years of presenting high fashion to African Americans, on African Americans, with African Americans taste-making in mind, enabled Mrs. Johnson to be a change-agent who harnessed the power of […]
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Fashion Culture | Donyale, Naomi, and Beverly – Fashion’s First Black Supermodels
Donyale Luna, Naomi Ruth Sims, Beverly Johnson.
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Fashion Culture | Who Made the Hats for Scarlet O’Hara? Meet Mildred Blount
Mildred Blount became the first African American member of the Motion Pictures Costumers Union. Her hats are in the collections of California African American Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
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Fashion Culture | Elizabeth, Fannie, Anne, and Zelda, Fashion’s First Black Designers
I love my clothes and I’m particular about whom I sew for. I’m an awful snob. I’m not interested in sewing for café society or for social climbers. I do not cater to Mary and Sue. I sew for the families of the social register. – Anne Lowe Gerri Major, Ebony Magazine, December 1966
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Fashion Culture | W.E.B. Du Bois’ Exposition des Nègres d’Amérique Transformed the World’s View of Black in America
In 1900 a transformation of Black identity and the world’s view of Blacks in America took center stage at the 1900’s World’s Fair in Paris. A perception of Blacks in America was manifested through photojournalism and visual data witnessed by the outside world looking in. Those in the Black community validated that perception by leveraging […]
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Fashion Culture | The Cotton Factory – ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’
Cotton, the most widely used textile fiber in the world, has a distinguishable, contentious history of oppressed, discriminatory labor practices in the United States. The use of cheap factory labor has its roots in an all too familiar story of oppression and segregation.
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Fashion Culture | “A Study of Eight”, the Untold American Story
A Study of Eight is a curated editorial project advancing the study of African Americans’ contribution to fashion history. Eight American stories cover people and events of cultural and historical significance occurring between 1880 and 1980 against the backdrop of the post Reconstruction era to beyond the civil rights movement. These stories represent the voices of […]
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Fashion Culture | Aryanization and the Destruction of Berlin’s Fashion Industry
By 1930, Berlin emerged as an international fashion capital. It’s success even drew Parisian fashion designers. Most of the fashion businesses were owned and operated by German Jews. In their thrust to decimate the Jewish population, in 1933 the Nazis implemented a campaign to force these firms to sell. Signs in store windows read “Germans […]
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Fashion Culture | Fashion’s First Black Photographer
Gordon Parks accomplished many firsts, including the distinction of being the first black photographer at Vogue, Glamour, and Life magazines.
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The Bold, The Beautiful, The Brilliant: Ikats from Central Asia
Textiles of historic traditional compositions and unparalleled beauty have been a marker of our time, and in some cases are modernized in transforming identity and culture.
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Fashion Culture | Alexander McQueen and Fashion’s Firsts
Alexander McQueen will clearly be documented in fashion history as the first most awarded and socially provocative designer.
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