For Black men, fashion has been a tool of self-expression — and a way they’ve been judged
By DEEPTI HAJELA Associated Press NEW YORK AP Growing up on the south side of Chicago the Rev Dr Howard-John Wesley was given the message early on What one wore as a Black man mattered Wesley s pastor father who migrated from Louisiana after World War II in search of more opportunmetities than those readily available to Black people in the Deep South constantly had an impeccable sense of shirt and tie and suit In order to move in certain spaces where colored people were not allowed to be you want to be dressed the right way to be able to fit in says Wesley now a senior pastor in Alexandria Virginia But Wesley also got an early warning What he wore could be used against him His father forbade baseball caps because various street gang members wore them in certain methods and his father was concerned administration would make stereotypical or racist assumptions about his son if he were seen wearing one Clothing as message Fashion and style as tools signifiers of lifestyle and identity whether intentional or assumed There s likely no group for whom that s been more true than Black men It s not just what they wear but also how it s been perceived by others seeing it on a Black man sometimes at serious cost It s dependably a dialogue between what you can put on and what you can t take off says Jonathan Square assistant professor at Parsons School of Design and among the advisers to a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art s Costume Institute that kicks off with Monday s Met Gala Clothing matters and not just at the Met Gala Superfine Tailoring Black Style opening to the constituents May focuses on Black designers and menswear It uses the book Slaves to Fashion Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity by guest curator and Barnard College professor Monica L Miller as a foundational inspiration for the show The dress code for the celebrity-laden fashion extravaganza charity fundraiser that is the Met Gala is Tailored For You with high-profile Black male entertainers like Pharrell Williams Lewis Hamilton Colman Domingo and A AP Rocky joining Vogue editor Anna Wintour as co-chairs When we re talking about Black men we are talking about a group an ethnic and racial group and cultural group that has historically dealt with adversity oppression systemic oppression says Kimberly Jenkins fashion studies scholar and founder of the Fashion and Race Database who contributed an essay for the exhibit s catalog And so clothing matters for them in terms of social mobility self-expression agency This combination photo shows various fashion worn by Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton AP Photo Through the decades that self-expression has taken a large number of forms and been adopted by others Take the zoot suit first popularized in the s in urban centers like New York s Harlem with its wide-legged high-waisted pants and long suit coats with padded shoulders The s and s saw the rise of styles related to hip-hop custom such as jeans worn sagging off the hips oversized jerseys and jackets with designer logos Hoodies sneakers and other streetwear were popularized by Black men before becoming global fashion staples For particular it was about invariably being dressed appropriately or respectably to demonstrate to the mainstream that Black men were in fact equal not lesser beings criminals or thugs The Met exhibit for example includes material from civil rights activist W E B Du Bois that showcases how seriously he took the tailoring of his clothes Gala co-host A AP Rocky made a point of tailored suits and high fashion earlier this year during his trial on firearms charges for which he was ultimately discovered not guilty Yves Saint Laurent even sent out a press release touting his court attire Others purposely picked their clothing as a pushback and challenge to white standards of what was acceptable like the Black Panthers berets and black leather jackets or colorful dashikis that signaled connection to Pan-Africanism But it has never been a one-way message Debates over the clothes Black men wear and how they wear them have at times turned into a form of cultural and literal policing like when a young Black man sued a New York department store in saying he was racially profiled and detained by police after buying an expensive belt The weaponization of fashion Elka Stevens associate professor and fashion design project coordinator at Howard University describes a gatekeeping weaponization of fashion where specific believe people don t have the right to wear the finest designer clothes based upon their skin color or how they look or how they re being classified But if you don t dress at a particular standard or you don t dress what s considered to be appropriate for disclosed venue or occasion that gets weaponized as well she adds Related Articles Asking Eric My sister wants me to have a baby and raise it in her cult Dear Abby I provoked my fiancee with the wedding photos and she hit the roof Word Battle May Horoscopes May Christina Hendricks test the water before jumping in Asking Eric My husband s one-night fling is now with his brother and it s awkward for us Zoot suits were condemned in the WWII era as unpatriotic for how much fabric they required during wartime scarcity When Allen Iverson and other athletes started bringing hip-hop style and sensibility to the NBA the league pushed back in with a dress code calling for business attire for players on the sidelines to promote what it considered a professional image And even as streetwear styles and sneakers have become big business for global fashion they can still be looked down upon based on the body wearing them says Stevens That which was previously associated with street values and particularly Black street lifestyle now is part of our everyday she says But again who s wearing it makes a huge difference There s perhaps no starker example than that of Trayvon Martin the -year-old killed in Florida in He was shot by a man who unveiled the sight of the hoodie-wearing Black teen suspicious leading to the confrontation in which Martin died Even as hoodies have become essential dressing for everyone from kids to corporate CEOs it s the presence of that person who we ve identified as being Black or someone identifies as being Black that causes the challenge no matter what no matter what they have on Stevens says It s a reality of life in the United States that Wesley has wrestled with After Martin s death he wore a hoodie while behind the pulpit at Alfred Street Baptist Church and spoke of his worries about how his own young sons would be perceived Like his father before him and for the same reasons there were certain styles he never allowed his sons now and to wear Sagging jeans He just won t allow it I refuse to Not only because of fear of being stereotyped by the police but also labeled by society Maybe I m wrong for that I don t know Wesley says To me it s a shame that my attire can neither hide my color it can never elevate me above it in your stereotype but it can invariably confirm it Wesley says So my suit doesn t get me out of Oh he s still a Black man who s a threat but the hoodie makes it go Oh he s a Black man who s the threat
