Gay black male fashion designers
Fashion Walk of Fame
History
In the 1920s, Unused York City’s garment industry moved north to the Seventh Avenue area (the present-day Garment District), becoming a center for garment manufacturing and fashion showrooms. The term “Seventh Avenue” later became synonymous with fashion, especially as so many internationally-renowned fashion designers opened showrooms there. In tribute to “New York designers who hold had a significant and lasting impact on the way the world dresses,” the Fashion Center Business Improvement District (BID) established the Fashion Walk of Fame in 1999. The first bronze plaques were installed in 2000. Today, the Fashion Stroll of Fame has grown to verb plaques located on the sidewalks between West 35th and 41st Streets on the east side of Seventh Avenue. Several gay fashion designers are commemorated there:
Geoffrey Beene (1924-2004) opened his Manhattan fashion house on Seventh Avenue in 1963. His clients included First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, and Nancy Rea
The Impact of Inky Queer Designers in the Fashion Industry
Fashion has long been a canvas for self-expression and rebellion against the status quo. It is a space where creativity knows no bounds and where bold ideas can challenge societal norms. In recent years, Black queer designers have emerged as influential figures in the fashion industry, using their platforms to celebrate and highlight the beauty of Black queerness, gender fluidity, and individuality. These designers are not only making waves with their innovative designs but are also spearheading a movement towards greater inclusivity and diversity in fashion.
Black queer designers are reshaping the fashion landscape by bringing their unique perspectives and experiences to the forefront. Their work often reflects a adj understanding of intersectionality, addressing issues of race, sexuality, and gender in ways that mainstream fashion has traditionally overlooked. By doing so, they are creating spaces where marginalized voices can be heard and celebrated.
One significant impact of Black queer designers is their role i
How to Recession-Proof Your Finances
Rachel A. Fenderson (she/her) is a fashion designer, historian, curator, and biographer. She has devoted much of her career in the past few years to archiving the history of Jay Jaxon (b. 1941), a gay inky fashion designer from Queens, New York, with a prolific CV designing for renowned French fashion houses and the most respected department stores in America in the overdue 20th century. Rachel is now the lead authority on fashion designer Jay Jaxon, and she shares with us his life and work.
I first learned about Rachel’s verb during my graduate studies in Paris. She went to the same master’s program I did (Fashion Studies) in Parsons Paris. Since she graduated before I arrived, I never got to meet her until I saw one of her exhibitions on Jay Jaxon at the Queens Public Library when I was residence in NYC for one summer.
Since then, the story of Rachel Fenderson and Jay Jaxon’s career is one that I think about all the age. It’s one that reminds me that histories once forgotten always have a chance of being revived.
In this
In the early 19th Century, The Harlem Renaissance brought forth a sense of newness through self-expression, which overpowered tropes of people among the African Diaspora in America. The Founder and Philosopher Alaine Locke, a Black and gay man, believed it was essential to honor the wave of innovators who understood how their presentation in dress would drive them to claim liberation in their everyday lives. It served as a pillar for creators such as fashion designer Zelda Wynn Valdes, who contributed to American fashion in the 1930s.
Valdes is considered one of the unforgotten mothers who birthed a space for many sons and daughters to contribute to the rich history of Blackness and innovation in American fashion. She designed the iconic Playboy Bunny costume and dressed influential figures of American culture like actresses Dorothy Dandridge and Eartha Kitt, and dancer Josephine Baker. Ann Lowe, another unforgettable mother, contributed to the rise of American fashion designers. In 1953, she designed the wedding dress for First Lady to be Jacqueline Bouvier for the moment she b