« Creating A Black Fashion Library » at Parsons Paris
The Parsons Paris Library in light of the Black History Month.
Exhibition from February 24th to March 25th
Parsons Paris Library presents a series of talks and an exhibition entitled Creating a Black Fashion Library, which is centered around the acquisition of and highlighting of particular books focused on Blackness (Christina Sharpe’s Monstrous Intimacies), Black identity (Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley’s Ezili’s Mirrors), and Black style-fashion-dress (Elizabeth Way’s Black Designers in American Fashion and Shantrelle P. Lewis’s Dandy Lion). Curated by our MA Fashion Studies Y1 student Ev Delafose, and with the contribution of the librarian and MA Fashion Studies Y2 student Ilaria Trame, this exhibition focuses on building a syllabus of Blackness and Black fashion(ing). Instead of attempting comprehensiveness, the exhibition contributes to undoing normative fashion canons and (re)making a decolonial fashion syllabus.
The window installation, open for visits until March 25th highlights Parsons Paris Library’s recent textual acquisitions alongside garments donated by Black designer Miya Rae’Lin and reprinted archival images. By including garments, accessories, and reprinted images that all deal with and relate to Blackness in some regard, this project explores what a library is, questioning the very idea of a library and archive, particularly as it relates to decolonial, Black archive-making.
The series of discussions that took place between February 24th and March 10th included the interventions from Dr. Jonathan M. Square, Dr. Che Gosset and the MA Fashion Studies students Jessica Clark and Antoinette Albaart.
On February 20th Dr. Jonathan Square has discussed in conversation with Ev the topic of Black fashion libraries and archives. Dr. Square is a fashion scholar whose main areas of focus are in the intersections of Black identity, slavery, and fashion. Dr. Square’s work with « Fashioning The Self » and « Rendering Revolution » are crucial to the field of fashion studies, particularly Black fashion studies. Dr. Square is currently an Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design in New York and a curatorial fellow at the Metropolitan Costume Institute.
On March 3rd was the turn of Y1 and Y2 MA Fashion studies students Antoinette and Jessica. Antoinette discussed her recent research on decolonial fashion studies. She has researched and worked in Black fashion and is currently working in Indigenous fashion studies. Jessica joined the conversation discussing her thesis research entitled: « Discovering Fashion Ethos through the West African Practice, Adinkra ». In conversation with Antoinette and Ev she explained the connection between her curatorial work in the context of the Fashion Studies program at Parsons Paris and her cultural background as a Black American woman.
The last conversation had place on March 10th with the participation of Dr. Che Gosset, writer and archivist who discussed the topic of Black fashion libraries with particular attention to Black trans aesthetics within the archives. Their work focuses on black and trans visibility, black trans aesthetics, racial capitalism, and queer, trans and black radicalism, resistance and abolition. They are currently a postdoc at the Center for Contemporary Critical Thought at Columbia University.
The exhibition and the related talks, join in the collective pursuit towards challenging the normative ways that libraries and archives are understood, produced and accessed.
This is just the beginning, and Parsons Paris and it’s library are happy to support in starting this important conversation.
Take a chance to learn more about the BFL at Parsons Paris by visiting the exhibition and watching Ev Delafose’s introduction video on our Instagram page @parsonsparis.fashionstudies !
Special thanks to the Director of the MA Fashion Studies Marco Pecorari for making this project possible!
Scenography Justin Morin / Communication Lisa Sarma / Technical Support Shaen Sellam