By Isseu Diouf Campbell
Black Dress, the exhibition celebrating 10 contemporary black designers opened on the first day of Fashion Week on February 6, 2014, at Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York City.
The idea for the project came two years ago to fashion design professor and co-curator Adrienne Jones when she was going through her godmother’s scrapbook of black designers.
“There were a lot of people that I never heard of. I realized that if I didn’t know, there were a lot more people who didn’t know,” she said.
Showcasing the work of more than 180 designers who impacted the fashion industry, and whose names were featured on the gallery’s walls would have been impossible.
Instead, Adrienne Jones and her team agreed on ten designers including Jeffrey Banks, Samantha Black, Stephen Burrows, Donna Dove, Epperson, Michael Jerome Francis, Byron Lars, Tracy Reese, Omar Salam and Laquan Smith.
“The choice wasn’t easy because, in the black fashion community, we all know of each other maybe not personally but professionally. We didn’t want to offend anybody so I gave instructions to my curator Paula Coleman and my fashion consultant Walter Green that I wanted a really good cross mix of designers,” the Pratt Institute professor added.
With more than 30 years of experience in the fashion industry, Adrienne Jones knows way too well the challenges that black designers face starting from the lack of finance to the lack of recognition, and with the Black Dress exhibition, she hopes to create change.
“It’s not easy for us (blacks) to walk to the bank and get a loan for anything. The doors got to open for us sometimes. It can’t always stay closed, and right now there is a lot of buzz about why it isn’t. They are noticing maybe for the first time that we are not plugged in like anyone else. This is fashion week why aren’t more black designers showing? As you can see by the collection that we have here, the talent is here. I don’t know if Black Dress is going to be the change that we need but I gave it the best that I had and I hope it makes a difference,” Jones said.
The free exhibition, which also features a video by Carrie Mae Weems, runs until April 26, 2014.
