The Black Fashion Designers is an exhibition at FIT that displays various garment and decoration pieces designed specifically by black designers throughout history. Curators specifically chose pieces more colorful and with unique silhouettes to signify each piece from everyday ready-to-wear clothing.
Here is an image of a black baby brooch, designed by Patrick Kelly. During the time, he gave these brooches to friends. His partner believed he did so, with intention of appropriating controversy by sending this image/brooch back in an empowered way.
This brooch is exhibited in the ‘activism’ segment of the exhibition – a movement I believe to be one of the most important movement for the fight against racism. Fashion garments rely its display, largely on the mannequin. However, at fashion shows, there is a significant amount of ‘white’ models, in comparison to black models. As mentioned in the past lecture, it is also rather rare to find mannequins that are built in representation of black people.
I believe that this piece was included in the exhibition because of its silhouette and representation of a ‘black’ baby. This brooch not only displays the baby’s entire body, but it can also be worn as a decorative piece on a garment – allowing the wearer to voice out their beliefs, anger and frustration. This piece can be worn everyday on different outfits that I would personally consider to be part of a garment and a huge contribution of black history. It allows others to understand the wearer’s standpoint without even having any direct communication, which also immediately voices out a homology between all wearers.
