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Objects That Matter

Cotton

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Madras Fabric

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Sporting Kente Cloth

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Essays & Opinion

Stylin': African-American Expressive Culture, from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit

A Great Day in Hip Hop – A Decade of Hip Hop Style’s Influences

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Photograph showing Martin Luther King, Jr., alongside students at Bennett College

Fashioning the Protest

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Beyonce performs at 2018 Coachella wearing an HBCU inspired costume

Styling the Quad: Fashioning the Legacy of HBCU Culture

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Profiles

Willi Smith

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Misa Hylton poses in front of a concrete wall

Fashion Architect Misa Hylton

Isaia Rankin

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Sam Cooke

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The Fashion and Race Database has much more original content like these Objects That Matter, Essays, and Profiles. Subscribe today to gain immediate full access »

From The Directory

Bethann Hardison

House of Aama

Founder Dr. Kimberly McGlonn standing to the left of a wooden table with a white top. McGlonn is wearing large round glasses, an Afro hairstyle, a black turtleneck sweater, a denim vest and denim jeans. The table has a record player with a Nancy Wilson record cover propped up next to it. On the wall above the table displays a large burnt orange Blk Ivy poster inside a frame that has an archival photo of black people marching during the Civil Rights Movement. Next to the poster hangs a framed Four Tops record cover.

Blk Ivy

The Directory catalogues various outside resources, practitioners, collectives and diversity initiatives. The list has over 175 entries, and growing! Subscribe today to gain immediate full access »

The Invisible Seam Podcast

The Fashion and Race Database partners with Tommy Hilfiger to launch a new podcast, The Invisible Seam: Unsung Stories of Black Culture and Fashion.

The Invisible Seam: Unsung Stories of Black Culture and Fashion features compelling interviews with expert guests, including designers, academics, fashion historians, museum curators, stylists and artists. It’s hosted by Kimberly Jenkins of The Fashion and Race Database.

cover image for the podcast series, showing a rainbow colored thread woven through the letters of the title

In The Library

Stylin’: African-American Expressive Culture, from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit

How to Slay: Inspiration from the Queens and Kings of Black Style

Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion

Black Designers in American Fashion

Free Stylin’: How Hip Hop Changed the Fashion Industry

White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue… and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity

Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Scholarly & Popular Articles

image from Vice.com showing 7 people making funny faces for a group pose

Patrick Kelly Was the Jackie Robinson of High Fashion

Fashion’s Racial Reckoning

Films & Documentaries

Fresh Dressed

The Gospel According To André

Red, White and Indigo: The Hidden Commodity of the Slave Trade

The Library has 1600+ external resources like these above, searchable by keywords, year, and author. It also offers five dozen suggested Reading Lists to get started on a particular theme in fashion studies. Subscribe today to gain immediate full access »