It’s Black History Month (BHM) at HxKing and we are (always) excited and inspired by black people in fashion. Let’s face it, black fashion is the most influential fashion out there. That is why this month we want to pay homage to the Blacks who did it first. The formidable forces, celling breakers, movers and shakers of fashion. We know that every triumph and opened door came at the price of overcoming discrimination.
Do you know what it takes to have a boutique on London’s legendary Savile Row? Ask Ozwald Boateng. He was the first and youngest to ever do it. The Ghanaian gentleman, famous for his purple suits, was also the first tailor to have a show during Paris Fashion week in 1994 and in 2004, Boateng was named Creative Director of Menswear at Givenchy specifically hired to "reinvent the French gentleman." Another fellow Ghanaian to take the fashion world by storm is Edward Enninful when he became the first black editor of the UK’s most powerful fashion magazine, Vogue, in 2017.
Speaking of firsts, Fenty is the first luxury line helmed by a woman of colour, Robyn ‘Rihanna’ Fenty the billionaire queen herself, at fashion conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH). Fenty draws inspiration from the 1960s Black Is Beautiful movement co-founded by photographer and activist Kwame Brathwaite who fought for visibility and acceptance of African features and styling. Also of the 1960s is designer Stephen Burrows, the first black designer to win the coveted Coty Award for best womenswear and Ann Lowe, designer for the Kennedys, Rockfellas and Roosevelts, who was the first black woman to own a shop on Madison Avenue, USA in 1968.
It’s one thing to wear clothes but it takes an iconic model to bring clothing to life. We recognise the courage and determination of melanated queens who own the runway in every sense of the phrase.
The jaw-dropping model Alek Wek fled civil war in South Sudan yet became the first Black model on the cover of Elle in 1997 and won the MTV Model of the Year award that same year. Similarly, the stunningly deep Sudanese model Adut Akech, a refugee from South Sudan, became the Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards 2019. Maria Borges: The Angolan beauty was the first ever black model to wear her natural hair down the Victoria’s Secret runway in 2015 and we simply couldn’t go on without mentioning Naomi Campbell, the first ever Black woman to appear on the covers of French and British Vogue and the first Black model to appear on the cover of Time Magazine.
At HxKing we recognise and thank those who have paved the way and are excited for the future of Black Fashion.
It’s true what they say, the most powerful colour in fashion is BLACK.