I love clothes. I mean I really LOVE clothes. I love fabrics, textures and natural fibers so much I can taste them. I dream about clothes, and wake up with ideas for new outfits. It must be in my DNA. In my senior year of high school I was voted best dressed, and in an all girl’s school that’s saying something. (Actually, I used to think that was a pretty shallow award, but now I know they were heralding my gifts.)
I once saw a Barbie post card that read, “Every day I wake up and thank God for my ability to accessorize.” Amen, sister! The right accoutrement can make an outfit. I’ve got winter and summer scarves, hats, gloves and belts in all the colors on my wheel including several different shades of black. I’m a New Yorker after all, and we’re committed to black until we can find a darker color.
I love shopping, but not in large department stores, which is the ninth circle of hell as far as I’m concerned. What I love are boutiques and even more, I love it when designers invite me to their studios. Oh, baby! The sewing machines, scissors in all sizes, spools of thread, hastily drawn sketches and half-dressed mannequins, the bolts of fabric and scraps on the floor, all hold the tantalizing promise of fabulous outfits just beyond the cutting edge of my imagination.
Years ago, as my consciousness about who I am as a spiritual, cultural and gendered being developed, I pledged that my exterior -my clothing -would always accurately reflect my interior – my creativity, tastes, cultural heritage and affinities, and my political and economic worldview. Clothing became a critical element in my sense of self-determination.
The notion that dressing is a political act was reinforced when I attended the opening of Black Dress: Ten Contemporary Fashion Designers at the Pratt Institute’s Manhattan gallery. The exhibit celebrates the groundbreaking work of ten up-and-coming and established New York-based Black fashion designers: Tracy Reese, Stephen Burrows, Pratt Institute alumnus Jeffrey Banks, Byron Lars, and Omar Salam, Samantha Black, Donna Dove, Epperson, Michael Jerome Francis, and LaQuan Smith. It was organized by Pratt Institute Fashion Design Professor Adrienne Jones and art dealer and exhibition developer Paula Coleman. Fashion guru and editorial director Walter Greene served as the project’s creative consultant.
Well, Donna Dove lives a block away from me. Epperson I’ve known and worn for years. Walter Greene is my dear friend Sonia’s cousin. Many friends, Harlem neighbors and back-in-the-day colleagues were there. So the reception was a cross between a family reunion and a sumptuous feast for the senses.
The exhibit had its aesthetic roots the fact that today’s African-ancestored designers are steeped in the cultural legacies passed down by predecessors such as Elizabeth Keckley, sole dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln, and Ann Lowe, who designed Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding dress.
It also renewed my commitment to fashion designers and artists. Clothing is a marketing billboard, so I avoid commercialized, mass market labels, designer and otherwise. For cultural and spiritual reasons, I refrain from pictures of people and animals on the things I wear. Along with pleated skirts, tube tops and acid washed jeans with a matching jacket, these are my fashion don’ts.
Affirmatively, I am purposeful in using my wallet and my body to celebrate, promote and support independent artists, designers and culturally enhancing images. After years of building my wardrobe, I can easily say that every day at least three things I have on have been made or sold to me by a woman entrepreneur or artist/designer of color. I’m living Kwanzaa principle # 4 (Ujamaa – Cooperative Economics) on the regular.
The American fashion industry’s primary narrative has deleted many African-American names, despite their significant contributions, both behind-the-scenes and on the runways.
They may be unknown and unsung in the world, but they are well represented in my closet. From head to hem, every day I am nourished and enriched by the creativity of my people.
