They say sports shouldn't have anything to do with politics, but as seen in the previous post, athletes are proving this wrong, using their visibility to bring attention to key social issues and taking an anti-racist stand.
They also say that fashion is frivolous and Haute Couture is just for wealthy people, but Kerby Jean-Raymond has been trying in his collections to tell stories and promote activism.
The founder of the Pyer Moss label, Jean-Raymond is the first Black American designer to be invited by the French Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, fashion's governing body, to present on the couture calendar in 150 years. This is a great achievement, even though the fact that it took over a century for this to happen makes you think (American Black designer Patrick Kelly was instead the first American member of the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter).
Founded in 2013 in New York, Pyer Moss is not really just a fashion label: Jean-Raymond conceives it as a platform to tackle a wide variety of social issue and explore Black culture. So far his collections have explored themes such as police brutality and paid homage to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock'n'roll, often forgotten in favour of white male rock'n'roll stars.
Pyer Moss's couture presentation was scheduled to take place last week at Villa Lewaro, the Madam CJ Walker estate in Irvington, New York, but in the end it was postponed to Sunday after a torrential storm hit the east coast.
But good things come to those who wait and while Jean-Raymond launched his S/S 20 collection with a grand show, kicked off by author Casey Gerald delivering a speech that moved from Fannie Moore, born a slave on a plantation in South Carolina in 1849, for couture the Brooklyn native designer took a trip down the history of Black inventors and inventions.
The celebration in the 100-year-old estate was more similar to a cultural event than to a runway: writer and singer Elaine Brown , the only woman to have led the Black Panther Party, spoke about Black empowerment, opening the show with a fierce speech about racial justice and freedom, mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. and Huey P. Newton and echoed in those "All power to the people" and "I am a revolutionary", the speeches of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in late-1960s Chicago.
Then 22GZ took the mic with male dancers and the runway started together with the lessons in the history of inventions. Jean-Raymond dedicated his designs to 25 Black inventions and inventors chosen from a list at the Library of Congress and on the Black Inventor Online Museum.
Jean-Raymond first thought about turning these inspirations into prints, but then he went for a fun approach, almost as if the looks were costumes for mascots. To make the designs he moved to Westlake, Los Angeles, and made the gowns in collaboration with Hollywood costume designers. The idea, conceived in a ayahuasca ceremony, wasn't to imitate specific couture designers or techniques, but to combine fun elements borrowed from Sesame Street and Pixar with historical moments.
Hence the design with a cascade of hair rollers forming a voluminous cape was a tribute to beauty entrepreneur and owner of the estate where the runway took place CJ Walker, America's first Black female self-made millionaire, hair care magnate, activist and entrepreneur, whose life inspired the Netflix series "Self-Made" (among the people invited at the runway there was also journalist A'Lelia Bundles, great-great granddaughter of C.J. Walker and her biographer).
The automatic traffic signal incorporated in a yellow mini-dress and a dress integrating elements disassambled from a gas mask around the bustier pointed at Garrett Morgan, who invented the traffic signal and the gas mask; a yellow evening gown framed by a structure integrating an air conditioning unit hinted at Fred Jones who developed refrigeration units in trucks and tractor-trailers, then modified the original design so they could be outfitted for trains, boats and ships.
Most of the gowns were also clever odes to the world of patents: the pale blue evening gown donned by a model carrying a horseshoe-shaped metallic structure referenced Oscar Brown, who was issued the United States Patent No. 481,271 in 1892 for an improved horseshoe; an extravagant gown with a skirt shaped like a metal bottle cap was inspired by Amos Long and Albert Jones' single-use bottle cap (US610715A); a long dress that looked as if it was made with a curtain, hinted at amuel R. Scottron's curtain rod patent (US481720A), while a white suit with fabric layers imitating A4 sheets and a belt incorporating typewriter keys was a reference to Newman Marshman who obtained three patents for typewriters (US patents 636156A, 636156A, and 672680A) and to patents granted to him and Lee Burridge.
But there was more to explore and learn in the chess suit - a tribute to the ancient military strategy games invented by the Egyptians and popularised by 13th century Moors, in a playful look incorporating a water gun, tribute to Lonnie G. Johnson, the former Air Force and NASA engineer who invented the Super Soaker, and in a soft oversized hand clutching a mop wrapped around the body of a model, a reference to Thomas Stewart's removable head mops.
Even the looks that referenced Jean-Raymond's own childhood were actually tributes to inventors: the body suit with a fire escape, a reference to growing up in Brooklyn, an evening dress with a massive '90s cellphone like the one owned by his father and cone trousers matched with an ice cream bustier or a peanut butter jar, pointed at Daniel McCree's portable home fire escape, Henry T. Sampson's first cell phone, Augustus Jackson, ice cream maker and confectioner from Philadelphia, and George Washington Carver who invented dozens of uses for the peanut, including ink, facial cream, shampoo and soap.
So, while superficially you may have thought this was all a fun extravaganza à la Jeremy Scott with some echoes of Claes Oldenburg's oversized Pop Art soft sculptures, there was a lot to learn behind each design.
While these pieces were more symbolical and are destined to exhibitions like the one at the Walker estate in Autumn, even though some of them will probably also appear at the Met Museum's Costume Institute exhibition about contemporary American designers "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" (opening in September), some elements could be easily turned into accessories, from bags to jewellery, or adapted to printed motifs for a more wearable ready-to-wear collection, so let's hope Jean-Raymond will do it to spread more knowledge and awareness.
In September the designer will return to New York Fashion Week, while next year his first collection as global creative director of Reebok will come out. For the time being though, Jean-Raymond has suggested us that while couture may not be for everybody, it may be used for higher purposes like telling stories that can teach something to everybody.
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