culturalboundaries

FASHION ACTIVISM from Shine Promos on Vimeo.

Black fashionista have taken there protest beyond the blogsphere to the street to voice the vehement dismay over the recent controversial hiring of a white fashion director, Ellianna Placas at Essence Magazine this past summer. The announcement stirred some old wounds and created a tidal wave backlash for Essence is known as a fertile training ground for many young black women seeking entry into the world of magazine fashion. Marc Baptiste well-known for his exciting fashion photography took his beliefs a step further when he captured the cultureversy on film of the fashionista protesting at this year’s Mercedes Benz during Spring/Summer 2011 Fashion Week. About 20 bodacious black women dressed in black with dark shades, slowly marched through the streets in silence from Time, Inc. the offices of Essence magazine to the new site of Fashion week at Lincoln Center. In the same spirit as Martin Luther King, who marched in the 1960s in Memphis with a group of Black garbage workers with picket signs reading (I Am a Man), these young women demonstrated using a similar signifer “I AM Fashion,”  each individual sign identified former fashion editors of Essence such as Susan Taylor, Iona Dunn Lee, Harriette Coles and Micheala Angela Davis, this is just a short list of the fashion directors who have served over the years. At issue  in this postracial society is while black women grace the covers of ELLE, VOGUE or BAZAAR magazines, few get have access to top positions as Fashion Directors in magazines or blogs. The likelihood is the storm will not cease and these sistas will be marching again when the Fall 2011 Mercedes Benz Fashion Week rolls around. To view Marc Baptiste film click on the Fashion Activism link above.