The story of how this ambitious project came to life.
Togo high heeled sandals by Aurora James for Brother Vellies. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
Elizabeth Way, associate curator at The Museum at FIT, is the sort of person who sets big goals for herself and then achieves them, knocks them out of the park, if you’ll excuse the baseball metaphor. She’s an inspiring person to speak with, and she made time to talk to me about the latest exhibition she has curated for the Museum, Africa’s Fashion Diaspora. It opens September 18, and will run through December 29, 2024 and is open and free to the public.
The Museum at FIT, which you can find on Seventh Avenue and 27th Street in New York City, was founded at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1969 and began holding exhibitions the next year. For more than half a century the Museum has cultivated a backlist of thoughtful exhibitions, many of which have been award-winning, that engage visitors and challenge them to consider the connections they have with clothing. If you’re not able to physically visit the Museum, is are a lot of resources available online, and a book published by Yale University Press, which is already available for sale.
A cotton and silk lace cape by Duro Olowu. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
“Fashion design has a lot to say as an artistic medium,” Way said to me when we met. I had asked her about the overlap between the circle that is fine art and the circle that is fashion. They make a Venn diagram, and that little sliver in the middle is a magical place.
“Not all fashion operates in this space,” Way told me, “but the designers I look at certainly are contributing culturally to the dialogues about what it means to be a modern Black citizen living in the world today. Because we are such an international and globally connected world, Blackness is so full of multitudes. It's so different and so diverse, and certainly there are lots of things that differentiate communities all over the world.” It would be minimizing our conversation if I were to say here that I learned a lot over the hour Way found to answer my questions about her work.
Drum cotton t-shirt and cotton and ribbon Tsonga skirt by Nkhensani Nkosi for Stoned Cherrie.
Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
The beginning of the story of Africa’s Fashion Diaspora starts back in 2016, when Way co-curated an exhibition with Arielle Elia, Black Designers In American Fashion. You might already be familiar with the beautiful book associated with that exhibition. “That was really a survey,” Way told me, comparing the 2016 exhibition to the type of introductory course intended to provide basic information to students about an unfamiliar subject. “We were introducing these Black designers to our audience, to people interested in fashion. We had people come through the exhibition who were experts not only on fashion, but Black fashion, who were introduced to designers they had never heard of. We were really proud of that.”
It is relatively common for a museum exhibition, at any facility, to be accompanied by a corresponding volume. “We didn't have time to do a book for that exhibition,” Way said. “It was in our smaller gallery, and Black Designers In American Fashion, [a volume Bloomsbury published in 2021], was a project I took on in my free time.”
A silk Oshun caftan by Felisha Noel for Fe Noel. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
Way made the time, as so many of us do for the projects we know are important. There’s a feeling that can be associated with work that connects on an emotional level, a sensation that must be akin to taking flight. I am convinced that being able to do work we love well, a feat that requires the support of others, both inside and outside of our communities, helps us to be the best we can be. I talk to a lot of people whose work I admire. Good work, done well, and they are always quick to tell me about the people who made their work possible.
“I was able to engage amazing scholars,” Way said of the book which followed the 2016 exhibition, “including my co-curator and others who had been doing work on Black American fashion designers. There was no secondary resource on these designers,” Way explained, “so it was really important for me to put together as a source for other people to jump off from. This writer was more than a little stunned to learn how little research existed on Black designers when Way and Elia first began planning their 2016 exhibition. That was probably naive of me, but like I said, I learned a lot from the brilliant Elizabeth Way.
Aisha Ayensu for Christie Brown, from the 2016 Prairie Princess collection. Photo:
Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
“Africa's Fashion Diaspora is actually a direct evolution from Black Designers,” she told me. Because the 2016 show did so well, “community support was there from the start,” Way explained. “Our director [Valerie Steele] and members of the Couture Council were enthusiastic about having a continuation of that project, and so they asked me to curate it in the larger space.” Back in 2016, Way explained, “we were able to create this kind of revisionist history of American, and to some extent international, fashion by reweaving these Black designers back into the story.” This time, she told me, the goal is different.
A T-shirt from a capsule collection by Kerry James Marshall and Wales Bonner. Photo: Courtesy of
The Museum at FIT
“I wanted to tell a different story,” Way said. “I didn't want it to be the same type of story, so not a survey and not a revisionist history, but really looking at the work of Black designers who are telling specific stories. In this case, diasporic networks and linkages and creating that culture across geographies. I wanted to really dig into the question of what is fashion design saying about this ongoing historic conversation.”
If you’ve read my work here before, you’ll know how interested I am in processes, so I had to ask how she approached such an enormous subject. “I always start with pieces in our own collection,” Way told me, “and we have some stellar pieces that I've been able to exhibit in the past. For example, Patrick Kelly's kente cloth ensemble is such a fascinating piece to me. I write extensively about it in the book. He was a Black American designer from Mississippi who's looking at kente cloth, and the more you read into kente cloth, you see how it's become a signifier across the diaspora. Especially in the United States as a sign of Black culture, a way for Black Americans who've been cut off from their cultural roots to make this connection back to the continent.”
A pair of Kente print synthetic trousers and basket hat designed by Patrick Kelly. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
More specifically Way explained, “It's also a very specific cultural object for Asante people that grew to be a national symbol in Ghana, so we see that it is so different in so many different ways. If you think about Igor Kopytoff’s theory of the biography of objects, we see how it has transformed in these different spaces. That’s a really special piece in our collection.”
“I was also looking at some newer pieces that we acquired over the last few years. For example, we have this piece, this ensemble from the 1970s by Willie Posey, who was this amazing designer working in Harlem. She's Faith Ringgold's mother and helped contribute to the quilts that Ringgold made, these beautiful pieces of art, but she was also a fashion designer, and we have this cool ensemble from her from the early 1970s where we see she's using these fabrics that are invoking ideas of the continent, and so we see the exotification of the flora and fauna of the continent used.”
Fashion is probably thought of most for its utility, but Way sees the deeper connections that can reverberate through a designer’s work. “The first and foremost thing, overarchingly, is to really think about how fashion is a vehicle for storytelling. That it's creative, that it's beautiful, and it tells these amazing, in-depth stories. And, you know, some people think that the commercial aspect of fashion detracts from its artistic integrity, but I think fashion is really uniquely positioned because of its commercial aspects.”
A beaded cotton wax print dress designed by Lisa Folawiyo. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
So how does one go about doing that? “If you like the clothing, you can just wear it,” Way told me. “You don't have to kind of dig into these stories, but if they fascinate you, if that's something that increases the value of these beautiful designs, there is a way to access those stories. No matter your background, and at the same time support these makers. Fashion is uniquely positioned when it is engaging in artistic narratives, but has one foot in the commercial.”
The third component which drives Way’s work is the relationship between apparel and sustainability. “It is certainly about supporting the people who make the clothes and being environmentally conscious,” she explained, “but it's also about reaching out to a wider community and seeing what her brand can do to give back. For example, Tracy Reese, who had a lot of experience in the New York fashion industry. And one day she was like, I'm not going to do this anymore. She went back to Detroit. She's helping to rebuild that city, her home city. And so there's other designers in that section. AAKS is a Ghanaian accessories and home goods company brand that uses woven raffia.”
A two-piece rayon set in zebra and leopard print designed by Mme. Willie Posey, mother of Faith Ringgold. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
Other examples Way cited include Studio One Eighty Nine, which works to provide a platform to promote African Fashion, and Brother Vellies, which is a Black owned and female led lifestyle and accessories brand. Way told me, “brings artisans together so that they can practice their creative craft so that they have choices in how they work. And then, you know, pairing them, paying them a fair wage so that they can do other things in their community. So I think that that's a really important aspect of fashion, transforming the business to do, to give back instead of take.”
There is so much more to say about this exhibition, the interesting and important avenues it explores. But Elizabeth Way tells the story best. I very much hope you seek out her work and let it expand your understanding of fashion and fashion history. I did exactly that and I am certain that what I learned will make me a better fashion historian and writer. “I want to underscore the idea that fashion has a lot of stories to tell,” Elizabeth Way told me. “And this exhibition is about the stories and networks within the Black African diaspora.”
Togo high heeled sandals by Aurora James for Brother Vellies. Photo: Courtesy of The Museum at FIT
Read the original article on Forbes.
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