FASHION, CULURE, FUTURES:
African American Ingenuity, Activism and Storytelling Symposium
Hosted by the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 21st when the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) presents a full-day, virtual symposium on the impact of African American’s in fashion. The line-up for this event is simply stellar, featuring Andre Leon Talley as Master of Ceremonies; Supermodels Beverly Johnson, Pat Cleveland, Peggy Dillard, and Tracey Africa; Designers b Michael, and Sergio Hudson; Fashion Fair Legends Shaya Simpson and Audrey Smaltz; Fashion writers Robyn Givhan from the Washington Post, and Eric Darnell Pritchard; and many more. We chatted with Elaine Nichols, Senior Curator of Culture at NMAAHC to learn more about this historical event.
SWERV: Congratulations on putting together such an amazing line-up. In addition to a stellar group of fashion influencers, the symposium is free to attend with advance registration. Anyone who is anyone in Black Fashion appears to be involved. How did the symposium come about and what should attendees expect from the event?
Elaine Nichols: The idea for the symposium originated in February 2019 with a conversation between me and Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Curator of Contemporary Design and Edward and Helen Hintz Secretarial Scholar at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Our discussion focused on the fact that the fashion industry needed to change and needed to change in ways that demonstrated a sustaining commitment to diversity and inclusivity. At the time, Cooper Hewitt was mounting an exhibition about Willi Smith and both institutions planned and collaborated on fashion symposia for 2020 in New York City and Washington, DC, respectively. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition and the symposia were postponed and the symposia planned for June 17, 2021 and October 21, 2021.
Part one of the symposium, inspired by Cooper Hewitt’s Willi Smith: Street Couture exhibition showcased their thoughts about how Smith used fashion to express broader ideas about representation, inclusion and diversity. The June 17th sessions addressed a broad range of topics, including representation in contemporary fashion, African and North American economics and ecology and queer and modest style in the mainstream.
The October 2021 symposium is the second part of that broader conversation about fashion, race, and gender. Its goals are to explore the inspirational ways that African Americans have and will continue to redefine the fashion industry. African Americans have creatively influenced and been influenced by the fashion industry, even as they have faced inequality, discrimination, and misrepresentation. The conference covers the following topics: historical and contemporary contributions of African Americans, fashion collections at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, LGBTQ+ influences on fashion, modeling during and after segregation, and African Americans in the global world of fashion.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has been collecting and talking about fashion since 2007, when we acquired the Black Fashion Museum collection, which was founded by Lois Alexander Lane in 1979. It contains over 2,000 dress and fashion-related objects that we are still processing.
Many of the Museum’s fashion and dress stories can be found; throughout our inaugural exhibitions, on our website, within our ongoing collecting efforts, including collections related to fashion icons such as, Eunice Johnson and her work with Ebony Fashion Fair, and Ophelia DeVore, one of the earliest African American models and Ann Lowe, one of America’s most outstanding designers. And we are telling dress and fashion stories through our public programs, like the one in 2015 that featured The Washington Post fashion critic, Robyn Givhan and designers Tracey Reese and B Michaels, who talked about how race impacted their careers as designers.
This symposium, Fashion, Culture, Futures: African American Ingenuity, Activism, and Storytelling is a continuation and a compilation of the many dress and fashion stories that make up this museum.
SWERV: The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has been very intentional to highlight the influence of African Americans on the culture of this nation. How would you characterize the impact of Black people on American fashion?
EN: In a 2018 survey of African Americans in the fashion industry, Lindsay Peoples Wagner included comments from Robin Givhan, the then fashion editor at The Washington Post. Givhan said, “This conversation is important because people need to be reminded that fashion plays an enormous role in shaping how we view and value people. If we don’t consider how the fashion industry is embracing, showing or including various people, then we risk allowing whole groups to be, if not devalued, then ignored.”
Her comments were very insightful and spoke volumes about the importance of fashion, something that is often considered frivalous, fleeting and insignificant.
African Americans have been part and parcel of American fashion from its earliest times and they are continuing in various roles. Even if they are not represented in large numbers, they are present. By having symposiums such as the Fashion, Culture, Futures: African American Ingenuity, Activism and Storytelling, we are creating places where important conversations about race, gender, diversity, and inclusivity can happen. It is the starting point for strategically creating institutional change.
SWERV: One of the panels focuses on the Black LGBTQ+ influence. Tell me about this panel and what you want folks to pull from this discussion?
EN: The fashion industry has traditionally rendered African Americans, women, and LGBTQ+ communities as invisible and when visible, as unacceptable, or outside of the norm. This symposium provides an opportunity to explore and have dialogue about how we institutionalize inclusiveness. We should see more than singular instances where one or only a few people who are part of a particular group are included on a temporary basis. There needs to be established change that is woven into the fabric of American culture. African Americans, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community must find spaces, in major and minor fashion houses, as editors, designers, fashion directors, journalists, illustrators, marketing executives, models, photographers, publicists, stylists, and in the retail market.
And finally, the symposium is a forum where LGBTQ+ people can offer their perspectives on their stories. They will have a chance to address the many ways that they have influenced and been influenced by the global fashion industry.
SWERV: The symposium not only explores the past, but also includes ways in which African American’s influence the current fashion industry and may in the future. What are your thoughts about the role Black people (designers, models, stylist, celebrities, etc….) currently play in the world of style today, and what should we expect in the future?
EN: In addition to talking about storytelling, this conference is about activism and ingenuity.
We can define dress and fashion activism as social, economic, and/or political actions that create or contribute to changes that benefit the larger society. It also includes efforts to create awareness and the need for change. There are many areas where we can see the ongoing need for change in the world of fashion. Going forward it is essential that there is institutional change that represents permeance and not a diminishing and occasional engagement.
Activism can be both an individual and collective action that pushes against traditional boundaries that limit the creative expressions of designers, models, stylists, and others. It can also include the many ways that they represent others who are marginalized and excluded. There are numerous examples of how Blacks and others have sought to transform fashion through their sartorial style and designs.
A recent example that comes to mind is the clothing designed by Kirby Jean Raymond and worn by him and Lena Waite to the 2019 Costume Institute Gala that was themed, Camp. They were dressed in matching white and blue pinstriped suits. Their messaging was literally woven into the garments that they wore, and it paid homage to “Black drag queens.” The stripes were lyrics from the music of various Black divas, Diana Ross’s song, “I’m Coming Out” and Gloria Gaynor’s, “I Will Survive.” Emblazoned on the back of their jackets, were the words, Black Drag Queens Invented Camp.
Another example would be persons of color who are fashion influencers and who have lent their voices to the movement to stop killing animals for their furs and skins. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), founded in 1980, became the leading activist group demanding major changes in the fur and meat industries.
From the 1990s to 2021 PETA’s anti-fur
movement, “We’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur” was highly successful in helping to both reduce the appeal of wearing furs and change the business of producing furs for consumption as fashion garments. Individuals like Naomi Campbell, Taraji P. Henson and other Blacks supported that anti-fur campaign. In that instance, their fashion activism was focused on saving animals through the elimination of animal furs as luxury garments.
The avenues for change are varied and unlimited. The future for Blacks in fashion is; to be visible, to make sure that they are telling their stories from their vantage point and to use their individual and collective voices to continuously be part of change that makes America and the world better.
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Fashion, Culture, Futures: African American Ingenuity, Activism and Storytelling Symposium will be held virtually on Thursday, October 21st. This is a free event, but registration is required. Go to @NMAAHC.COM for additional information.
