Inside Seven Decades of Black Fashion Design

Only 1% of black fashion designers' presentations are covered by Vogue Magazine. The industry’s lack of diversity spurred The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Ariele Elia and Elizabeth Way to organize Black Fashion Designers, an exhibition featuring runway looks from Stephen Burrows, Hood By Air, and Olivier Rousteing for Balmain. The exhibition showcases formal evening wear, menswear, streetwear, couture, prints and textiles, and spans more than a half century of black dress, using history to examine black fashion design.

“There have been a few exhibitions that have covered black fashion designers or black fashion style but most of them have been on individual designers such as Stephen Burrows or Patrick Kelly,” says Elia, who is the Assistant Curator of Costume and Textiles at The Museum. “For this exhibition, we wanted to take a wider look at black fashion designers specifically because there have been many talented designers that today are pretty much unrecognized in the fashion industry.”

Tracy Reese, Spring 2016

Black Fashion Designers features 75 looks by 60 designers. The exhibition explores early forays by black designers in dressing notable Americans. The beige wedding dress Jacqueline Onassis wore to marry John F. Kennedy was designed by Ann Lowe in 1953. The exhibition notes that Lowe learned her craft from her mother and grandmother. Lowe’s dress alludes to the eight years of the Obama administration, in which designers like Duro Olowu and Tracy Reese have dressed the first black First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.

The exhibition also speaks to the influence black designers have played in the building of American fashion into a global phenomena. In 1973, Stephen Burrows was one of the designers representing America in The Battle of Versaille Fashion Show, showcasing French and American designers in a French palace. Burrows’ presentation is widely considered to have helped elevate American design to the level of Parisian houses. On display in the exhibit are designs by Patrick Kelly, the black designer who found critical acclaim in Paris by subtly using the racism he experienced at home in America to inspire his designs. His button dress is said to be rooted in watching his grandmother create the family’s clothing during the Jim Crow years in the South.

Read more here: