“It Was Like Quiet Thunder”: The Hidden Stories of WWD's BLACK IN FASHION

For over 100 years Women’s Wear Daily has been the bible for the
fashion industry, and its archives include numerous hidden
contributions of Black designers and models. Now that history has
been gathered in a stunning new book, BLACK IN FASHION, by Tonya
Blazio-Licorish and Tara Donaldson, showcasing the indelible
influence of Black culture on a global scale.


On Episode 5 of Rodeo Drive-The Podcast, host Lyn Winter spoke
with the authors about the book and the revelations they found in
the WWD archives.  


“Fashion has a flawed public history because it hasn't included
all the voices,” says Blazio-Licorish, also a visual culture
historian and editor with PMC Media Archives. “We were always
there, and not just there in marginal roles, but in important
roles, in roles that were shaping fashion,” adds Donaldson, most
recently WWD's executive editor and Head of Diversity, Equity and
Inclusion at Fairchild Media. 


Dating back as early as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black
community was making its mark on clothing and style, from Black
dolls for young Black children, early fashion shows, business
associations, and fashionable scenes like at The Cotton
Club. 


The authors single out early “influencers” such as Josephine
Baker, who even had a hosiery color named in her honor, the
dancer Katherine Dunham, who was all the rage in 1940s France,
and then the Black models, including Pat Cleveland and Bethann
Hardison, who shook up global fashion at the famed 1973 Battle of
Versailles.


The late André Leon Talley recalled this momentous event in
conversation with the authors before his passing. “You could
almost just reach out and touch the energy they gave in the air.
It was like quiet thunder, and because everyone saw that and felt
that at the battle, French designers – Givenchy, Yves Saint
Laurent – they started wanting black models.”


Black fashion has been intertwined with politics – and BLACK IN
FASHION explores how clothing reflected the moment:


“During civil rights, that time was really about respectability
politics,” explains Donaldson. “It was coming in your Sunday
best, to assert dignity. It was a kind of a polite request for
human rights. By the time you get to the 70s, the mood changes,
the look changes…then the Black Panther movement, it's more
powerful, it's more assertive…You have the leather jackets, you
have the turtlenecks, you have the berets. And then we see that
evolve even into the 2020s. And there's the branded T-shirts,
Black Lives Matter.”


Finally, the story is still unfolding. Black designers are still
not getting the high level industry jobs they deserve, argue
Blazio-Licorish and Donaldson, and are even ambivalent about
being labeled as Black.


So Blazio-Licorish says they finished on a question: “We
purposefully left the conversation open to, who's next, who's
now, and what do they have to say about where fashion is going to
go?”


Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo
Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo
Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly
Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.


Season 5 Credits:


Executive Producer and Host: Lyn Winter


On behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica Rose


Scriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances Anderton


Editor and Videographer: Hans Fjellestad


Theme music by Brian Banks


Production Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.


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