Designers have explored African style before, but this year the results have been sophisticated, not stereotypical.
The fashion industry has made plenty of inept forays into unfamiliar cultural waters. In 1993, Italian design duo Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce, working under the Complice label, tried to create a collection that celebrated the style of the African diaspora.
The results were fuzzy fake Afros, Tower Records shopping bags, low-riding pants, the colors of black nationalism and black models hired just for the occasion. It could have been viewed as an exuberant effort to pay tribute to diversity. But it also was a collection burdened by stereotypes and miscalculations: The program notes, for instance, referred to Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammy as an emblem of black pride.
Fashion has long been more adept at exoticizing people of color than celebrating their aesthetic contributions. This year, the exploration of African influences has been more sophisticated, and a generation of black mannequins are ready to follow in the footsteps of Naomi Campbell.
“This time, [black] culture is being talked about,” says Susan Taylor, editor of Essence.
Credit a convergence of influences: the traditional dress of Africa, the pastiche style popular in multicultural communities, the point of view of blacks working behind the scenes or in the shadows of the fashion industry. This last factor has often been hidden from history: Anne Lowe, a black woman who was born in Alabama and who moved to New York at 16, created Jackie Kennedy’s 1953 wedding dress.
“Black people don’t all design Afrocentric stuff,” says Jelani Bandele, founder of a company that represents several designers, some of them black. And attention-grabbing white designers like John Galliano, Dries Van Noten and Ralph Lauren have embraced a black aesthetic in recent collections. Galliano showed face-framing, filigree necklaces modeled after original Masai adornments in his spring-summer couture collection for Christian Dior. Earlier this year Lauren, also inspired by the colors, textures and jewelry favored by the Masai, introduced a collection of knit dresses and sand-colored suits with African influences. It was not a presentation of costumes.
“He’s not doing it so it’s a very literal interpretation like when he did his safari ‘Out of Africa’ thing,” says Julia Chance, Essence’s associate fashion and beauty editor. “It looks like a real tribute.”
Interest in black style is continuing. At the Paris spring ’98 ready-to-wear collections shown in October, Galliano, designing for Dior, gave his models Ndebele-style giraffe chokers. For his signature collection, the inspiration was black film star Dorothy Dandridge, with Campbell styled to conjure up her image. And Van Noten offered a multilayered ethnic mix of patterns and textiles shown to the rousing percussion of Burundi drummers.
Models of African descent--Chiara Kabukuru and Alek Wek among them--have had a strong year on the runways and in the magazines. Kabukuru, wearing a Richard Tyler evening gown, appeared on the cover of Vogue’s July issue, which included an editor’s note by Vogue boss Anna Wintour expressing her hope that readers would embrace this black cover girl. Wek, with her ebony skin, high derriere and ballerina legs, is a hot property. Wearing a Giorgio Armani suit, she graced the cover of Elle in November.
Jean Paul Gaultier’s fall collection was the perfect distillation of hip-hop deluxe, Harlem cool, urban African and diva fabulous. Gaultier used black models almost exclusively. Their hair--a favorite topic of soul-searching, politicized black writers--had been transformed into sculpture: long, tall pillars of kinks, whimsical Afro puffs, delicate corn rows, dreadlocks, luxurious tresses and masterfully marcelled curls.
Gaultier said, “I had the image of the wife of an ambassador of an African country living in a city like New York or Paris . That woman is dressed in an Occidental way but she keeps her African roots with some accessories like a turban and big jewelry.”
Whenever such a direct homage is paid to black style, questions of authenticity and manipulation arise. Did Gaultier borrow from Harlem style or steal it?
“I read that the same way I read Cubism. It’s Picasso inspired by African masks,” says Robin D.G. Kelley, a New York University professor of history currently on fellowship at Stanford. “You can debate all day if it’s theft or appropriation. To me it proves that people in the world of aesthetic and cultural production are always turning to black people,” he says. “If they can’t find it in the ghetto, they go to Africa.”
“The protectors feel that people are only skimming the surface. What has traditionally been ours has been looked upon as ugly until someone else says it’s fine,” Bandele says. “So you have that fear that someone else is taking your stuff.”
“It’s so touchy,” Chance says. “Still, it’s best that these images are put out there. To ignore [the culture] is the worst kind of insult.”
If part of the allure of this black aesthetic is that it seems so different from the bulk of fashion, it has to some degree been helped along by black people themselves and by the nature of society. Truly creative style is born out of want. Those without the means or the access to the dominant look simply create their own. Black jazzmen did it with berets and zoot suits.
Young black men do it. And the fashion industry profits. “The African aesthetic has been a great inspiration to me and to designers all over the world. . . . We take cues from the African American community, especially the youth,” said clothing manufacturer Tommy Hilfiger as he was being honored for his celebration of black style. “I should be giving them the award.”
