Let’s talk about slavery for a bit.
For the purposes of this piece, “slavery” will be used to identify people so strongly influenced by something that they behave as if they can’t live without it. “Slave to fashion” or “fashion victim” both refer to people whose tastes and choices are wholly dictated by fashion industry trends.
Unwittingly, these “slaves” follow the direction of entities who drive their “choices,” regardless of if they make economic sense or are even suited to the individual. We hold Black celebrities in such high regard that they drive fashion trends, but are those celebrities pushing us in the right direction…?
Take Usher’s Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show performance: We have a Black superstar with a storied career, dressed by revered Black costume designer Tanja Caldwell and stylist Brookelyn Styles. However, Dolce and Gabbana was the designer chosen for the most watched televised program in history, at 123.7 million viewers. It was a missed opportunity to create exposure and opportunity for a deserving Black designer on the world stage.
It’s also a reminder that Black people love to feed the legacies of European design houses while starving our own: It’s perfectly acceptable to spend $2,500 for a pair of Louboutins or $5,000 on a Louis Vuitton bag while looking down on Black designers as if they create a product of lesser quality, even when we can plainly see and feel that it isn’t true.
We know that Black excellence, Black culture and style are unmatched and often imitated without attribution — nearly everyone copies it or is threatened by it. So why do Black people view everything outside of the European concept of beauty as substandard?
It’s related to generations of our people being subliminally manipulated into such “choices” by advertisers who saturate media with the false idea that everything white is naturally better. It’s a by-product of an era in which respect and status were systematically stripped from the image of Black personhood to justify the transatlantic slave trade and colonial domination of people and resources.
Since Black people are still conditioned to aspire to European objects, culture and even European interpretations of our own culture, we’ve become our own worst enemy. To quote the recent Netflix documentary “Stamped From The Beginning,” which is adapted from the Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name, “The only this wrong with Black People is that Black people think something is wrong with Black people.”
Consider the irony of supporting the economy of the very system that has its feet on our necks. What is really stopping us from building and supporting our own empires? Black stylists, costume designers and fashion designers should be working in tandem to create fashion that Black people, in turn, support with our sizable economic influence.
It’s past time for us to emancipate ourselves mentally. Black fashion is just a start.
Rick Ramsey is a Fashion editor and stylist based in NYC.