Learn More About The American Fashion Industry
The American fashion industry has been noticeably white throughout much of its history. That is, there were undoubtedly fashion designers who would be considered “visible minorities” today, but they were rarely known by the general public. Jewish designers, while also being a minority, were associated so closely with the industry from the beginning that they were probably exempt from some of the racism that may have been behind this invisibility for others. But through the twentieth century, for every person with a career as a fashion designer, the public could name very few who were identified with a minority group.
That has finally changed in recent years. On September 18, 2009, the Wall Street Journal wrote a feature article about Asian American fashion designers who have taken the world by storm. Vera Wang was the first to begin making a big splash, in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century, when she didn’t join her father’s petroleum or pharmaceutical businesses but opted instead for a career in fashion design. For awhile she was the only major Asian American designer making headlines, but now she is joined by such designers as Thakoon Panichgul and Phillip Lim, Thailand-born Americans whose work has become well known.
Black American fashion designers, too, have come to the fore in the past couple of decades. Byron Lars, with a fashion design degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, began with great promise in the mid-1980s, faltered somewhat in the 1990s, and has come back with his Byron Lars Beauty Mark line in the 2000s. Kevan Hall was fortunate enough to encounter fashion programs in his Detroit High School before attending the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. He has been dressing celebrities and selling to well known fashion retailers for years, and in 2002 he launched his Kevan Hall collection.
It’s about time that the accomplishments of fashion designers from visible minorities are recognized. Partly because they are minorities, they have had to fight some degree of racism and even family expectations to get where they are. But even more than that, they should be recognized for their own fashion design careers, and not just because they come from a minority group. All great designers should be acknowledged for their accomplishments, no matter who they are.
Jeremy Larson is a foremost expert in the acid reflux cure field. His work has been extensively published in various online publications in this area. For more information on the treatment for acid reflux, visit RemedyForAcidReflux.com.
