“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman, the most unprotected person in America is the Black woman, the most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
– Malcom X
As fashion profits from black women’s style, innovation, and cutting-edge ideas, its backstage is still filled with racist landmines while its forefront projects inclusivity and Black mobility, the sad realities of the fashion system still remain valid, the bias and uplift of White talent remain a constant since its inception.
A prime example of this is the 2020 recent loss of the coveted American luxury brand Cushnie. Founded by Parsons Alumni Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs in 2008 after Cushnie & Ochs graduated from the Parsons BFA fashion design program. The brand, then known as Cushnie et Ochs, had a fantastic break-out collection in 2009 that attracted many celebrity clients but also an influential investor whose deep pockets helped the brand to continue to provide its ready-to-wear luxe fashions and expand into seasons and areas other than ready to wear. In 2018 the design duo split up, and designer Carly continued with the brand dropping the et Ochs and renaming simply Cushnie. Since 2018 and through the heights of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was able to survive.
Cushnie Et Ochs Spring 2009 fashion show
Since its inception, the brand has proven to be one of the most prolific American high fashion brands since Halston, Stephen Burrows, Bill Class, and De la Renta won the Battle of Versailles in 1968. Weathering the storm of two economic falls and keeping its brand essence of sexy, slinky girl boss wear. It’s one of the few brands I could always count on to see a good show and even better fashions from every season. Between its breakout Fall 2009 Ready to wear collection that solidified Cushnie’s detail-oriented, playful and sexy silhouettes with a pop of innovative well-tailored garments (pictured above) to its phenomenal closing collection in Fall 2020 that gave evening wear a new flair (pictured below). Imagine my surprise and deepest puzzlement when the creative director/designer Carly announced in October via Instagram that this would be her last and final collection after 12 years she was shutting her fashion label down because COVID-19 has impacted her business beyond repair, and by the time she was offered help for her business, it was too little too late. It was very disappointing to see that fashion’s hand only lent itself to such a terrific designer only after countless murders and injustices to Black people were served up like Worldstar videos throughout the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carly has spoken numerous times about her struggle with inclusivity in the fashion world, stating in an interview to WWD “While there are many achievements I am so proud of, it would be neglectful not to acknowledge having to fight much harder than my male peers to afford the same opportunities,” she wrote. “One of the great ironies of the fashion industry is that while it caters to and profits from women, it has never felt like an industry that supports them. This is especially true for women of color, and I am confident and hopeful that the distance I have traveled will help to pave the way for the next generation of diverse talent,” she said.“As one of the few Black female designs to achieve this level of success, I am both humbled and empowered by the undeniable mark that I have made,” she said.
When a brand like this is forced to close its doors due to funding and the industries habit to cherry-pick the Black designers they wish to support and fund (which no shade are mostly Black male-owned), it always makes me think about how many talented designers have slipped through the imperious fashion cracks because of onslaught racism and bigotry in an industry that claims to be everything but. Fashion consistently uses Black talent to face their brands, but rarely chooses to put Black people in powerful positions in the fashion system, often deciding instead to invest and re-brand European fashion houses that have long since died to expand their portfolios and further alienate minorities who are qualified to head their own houses. This situation would’ve been the perfect time for Kering or LVMH to fully invest in a brand like Cushnie so that expansion and longevity are attainable. Large luxury conglomerates would do well to put their money where their Instagram black box post is. A move like this would’ve expanded their portfolio and put a Black-owned high-luxury fashion house in a position to access the resources available to other fashion houses.
To Cushnie, I am sorry that the fashion system has let you down. But, I am so grateful for the barriers you were able to continue to push open for Black women in the luxury fashion sanction and for the hope little black girls and boys (like myself) received when looking at your collections on the runway. I know for a fact we will see you soon. Design talent like that will never die. It only multiplies.
This opinion piece was written Oct 2020, and has since been re-published on a newly updated website*
