I'm lucky to have parents who read as much (if not a lot more) than I do and will cut articles out of the paper for me. I started reading a Robin Givhan article titled "
Important Finery finds a place in a very fine home" from the end of May in the end of May, but got swept into too much work and ultimately forgot about it. Luckily, when I got home, I found that my mother had snipped the article and saved it for me, knowing I would be interested. The article is about a collection of clothes that will be featured in a Smithsonian museum slated to open in 2015. The collection is composed of clothes made by African Americans and will be featured in the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
A velvet fur-lined cape created by former slave Louvenia Price
Givhan weaves a story interesting not only because of the history she writes about but also because it is so widely unknown. It's not often that people think about the contributions of African Americans to American fashion. After all, when we think of American fashion in the 1700s and 1800s we think of it coming mainly from Europe and then for the 1900s and 2000s we get to thinking about American designers like Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs. But Givhan points out the history that has often been glossed over. The history of slaves who created dresses for their masters - adding their own embellishments and ideas to the prominent European styles of the day. Of people who by and large made their own clothes, of those African American seamstresses who created dresses for first ladies. Givhan writes of Ann Lowe who created dresses for the people at the top of the social hierarchy in New York in the earlier part of the 20th century. Lowe created the wedding dress of one Ms. Jackie Bouvier - the soon to be first lady of John F. Kennedy.
A dress by Ann Lowe
Givhan also tells the story of those who have spent their lives collecting these pieces of clothing, building a historical record. Of one of those women, Lois K. Alexander Lane, she writes "She had been told - often and flatly - that African Americans had not made significant contributions to fashion; they were not designers. She knew that couldn't be right if only because she knew something about her own family. Lane's grandmother was 13 years old when slavery was abolished and she knew that on plantations, the slaves assigned to work indoors were responsible for making clothes for the family that owned them. Aren't those women, creating garments by hand, inspired by their own imagination, designers of a sort?"
This article resonated with me for a number of reasons - for one, while reading the above quote I was reminded of my grandmother, who made a good deal of her own clothes (and even her own shoes!). I still have some of those clothes and wear them, since they were made to last through multiple washings and decades of wear. In her own way, as I believe any person who picks up a piece of fabric and can make something for themselves, she was a designer. Of course this resonated for me on another level as well. As an African American young woman interested in fashion, it's especially important to see how people like my distant relatives contributed to the field that I have so much interest in, that offers relatively little in the way of people who look like me. Of course, I'm thankful for Robin Givhan who provides me with a role model in my field of aspirations. You think if I emailed her for an informational interview, she'd say yes?
All images from the Washington Post
