For long seasons (or maybe years...) New York Fashion Week was a commercial affair of monumental proportions with just a few occasional designers trying to raise their voices about key social and cultural issues.
Things changed with this season, though, with some designers bringing politics on the runway with their S/S 20 collections addressing identity issues and barriers. Among them there was also Pyer Moss' Kerby Jean-Raymond who organised a major show at Kings Theatre in Flatbush that focused on African American history and the black experience in America.
After winning the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award in November last year, Jean-Raymond actually skipped one fashion season in February, but he seems to have benefited from the break (proving that taking a pause from the relentless rhythms of fashion can be invigorating...).
The Brooklyn native designer returned indeed with a grand show, kicked off by author Casey Gerald with a speech that moved from Fannie Moore, born a slave on a plantation in South Carolina in 1849, and often whipped like an animal with a cow hide.
Gerald made a connection between Moore and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock'n'roll, often forgotten in favour of white male rock'n'roll stars.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe's music wasn't the only star of the night: on stage there were also the 90 members of the gospel Pyer Moss Tabernacle Drip Choir Drench in the Blood, originally formed 4 years ago by Jean-Raymond and his show director Dario Calmese.
For the occasion the choir opted for a set that included hits by Tina Turner, but also by hip-hop female artists such as Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott.
Music was the starting point for the collection that was entitled "Sister": Tharpe was usually elegantly dressed, and matched her elegant gowns with her guitar that she played fiercely.
Jean-Raymond opened with a glamorous sparkly look with wide-leg pants and a bolero jacket and then created dresses, jackets and skirts with piano or guitar-shaped panels and embroidered keys. A full skirt recreated the curves of a grand piano, while a pleated one in gold yellow seemed to mimick the interior of a piano.
Prints of singers performing and pin-striped motifs broken by a series of musical instruments provided variations on the musical theme.
The latter was also explored in the accessories such as leather guitar and piano bags and in the hairstyles. Guyanese hairstylist and barber Nigella Miller worked on the hair looks with braids enriched with beads and pendants by Johnny Nelson shaped in the likeness of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu among the others.
Music combined with art in the vibrant tunic dresses and skirts with prints of paintings by Richard Phillips, an artist wrongfully imprisoned for 45 years for a homicide he didn't commit, who was released from custody in 2017 and won exoneration a year later and there was a political message in this section as well, with a tank top with the message "Vote or Die (For real this Time)".
The show then continued with the Reebok partnership (as artistic director at the company, Jean-Raymond takes care of Reebok Studies, a sort of incubator for young talent), introduced by actor Caleb McLaughlin in a salmon jacket. Pastel colours combined with a darker palette comprising green and purple on black in the sweatshirts and tracksuits that followed, but there were also asymmetric plissé tracksuits for those fashion fans who can't make up their minds between elegant designs and sportswear.
In between music, art and sport, there was also another collaboration with Sean John, the fashion lifestyle company created by music mogul Sean Combs.
The ambitious show closed with a standing ovation and the choir offering a rendition of Christian gospel "Make Me Over Again" that left the audience wondering if fashion is maybe just a vehicle for Jean-Raymond to present his thoughts and about a series of key social issues (rather than just an excuse to post picture on Instagram...).
Deep down you feel that Jean-Raymond may indeed find a different path in his life and leave fashion behind to embark in a career as a writer of fiction or essays (after all, his celebration of freedom only emphasised the fact that, 170 years after the birth of Fannie Moore, there are still people living in slavery - think about migrants flying their countries who end up stuck on boats in the Mediterranean...). In a nutshell this monumental show in a 3000-capacity venue seemed just a small chapter in Jean-Raymond's future.
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