texturesmaterialculturelab-blog

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

Texture in Abstract

Fresh off of his astounding piece featured at the Venice Biennale this year, artist Mark Bradford’s newest work at the Hirshhorn Museum of Washington, D.C. is certain to be just as memorable. The piece, Pickett’s Charge, is composed of abstract images spread over eight canvases. The combined canvases are organized into a nearly 400-ft cyclorama (360-degree panoramic image) that wraps around the third floor of the museum. Pickett’s Charge, Bradford’s most massive artwork to date, deals with the legacy of the Civil War and is an abstract, visual reflection of the battles still being waged over the meaning of the war in the U.S. The work is inspired by French artist Paul Philippoteaux’s The Battle of Gettysburg (1883), a cyclorama that depicts the iconic encounter. Bradford’s creation is a reference to the failed attack, Pickett’s Charge, led by the Confederate Army.

The relevance of this piece is surely not lost on those of us who have been paying attention to media accounts of the fight over Confederate iconography in public spaces and on university campuses. In many of the Southern states, where these battles are taking place, the Confederate narrative has dominated discourses about memory and race, while the history of slavery and violence against African Americans has been largely underdeveloped.

Bradford, a former L.A. hairstylist, is an astute creator who is known for salvaged materials to produce masterful, abstract pieces. Abstractionism as a practice presumes that the most “realistic” representation is just that: a representation. Therefore, abstract art necessarily exists at a distance from social reality and emphasizes artifice, regardless of whether it is derived from a reference from the real world. So, the power of abstract art like Bradford’s is that it makes us question what is natural, true, and authentic – including and especially our collective history.

Pickett’s Charge is truly stunning work. Something to be experienced in person. And while it is Bradford’s attempt to revisit and challenge the meaning of a decisive moment in America’s history, his work also speaks to black cultural practice – taking something that has been discarded and reimagining it as something new and different; infusing it with value. Bradford takes iconic, romanticized imagery from battle, and seamlessly challenges historical narratives that have been contested over time, through collage, cutting, shredding, torching, and tearing, adding ropes and cords. The result is his production of new textures that reflect the very complexity of our history.

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

Filmmaker Chaz Barracks on his documentary, #DontTouchMyHairRVA and the politics of black hair

For years, black women have vocally expressed frustration with the multiple ways our bodies have been historically commodified and violated for the pleasure of a white audience. Despite the 2013 “interactive public art exhibit” called “You Can Touch My Hair,” where strangers were allowed to approach the textured coifs of black women as they statically held signs that asked them to touch their hair, black women have not only had to fight off the advances of everyday people, but have also had to endure dehumanizing, state sanctioned racial profiling, as TSA agents routinely search black women’s natural hair. 

Even with the 2016 release of Solange’s hit record “Don’t Touch My Hair” on her award-winning album A Seat at the Table, Solange still faced digital cropping of her crown on the October 20, 2017 cover of the British pub Evening Standard Magazine. Recently, art director and designer Momo Pixel used a little of her #blackgirlmagic to develop the “Hair Naw” video game, which allows you to craft your own black woman avatar as she navigates the complexities of personal and aesthetic expression. 

In the midst of these important and lively conversations taking place about the politics of black hair, embodiment, commodity, and self-care, #TeamTextures sat down with filmmaker Chaz Barracks, who recently screened his short film “#DontTouchMyHairRVA” at the Afrikana Film Festival. Chaz is also a Ph.D. student in the Media, Art, and Text (MATx) doctoral program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Chaz is also founder of the program, I AM MY LIFE, which serves as a creative platform for youth/community projects and workshop curriculum by merging education, the arts, and personal narrative to build and sustain inclusive and equitable spaces. 

#TeamTextures: What was your inspiration behind your film, #DontTouchMyHairRVA? 

Chaz Barracks: I think as a graduate student there always were these underlying feelings of being an imposter, disrupting the space, working really hard to get into a PhD program and then feeling like it’s not what you thought it would be because you’re not represented as a black, gay, first generation college student and I think there was an illusion about coming to an art school for my doctoral degree that it would be dope, and it would be woke, and I would be surrounded by black folks that are doing really cool work and are on the come up, but it’s very similar to being at a typical white institution because in the doctoral space, we are not very well represented. So, when Solange’s album, “A Seat at the Table,” came out, I was very inspired by her use of her personal narrative to be used as expertise. I think that album really inspired me. It was very therapeutic. That album inspired a lot of my art making, a lot of stories that I told, a lot of my writing for class. The film centers black women and incorporates black women as our point of reference to talk about all of the hidden narratives within the black community to show that we are really not a monolith and that there is diversity within diversity. Richmond for many of us, represents Black history, the current culture, and rich Black presence in this city. As the city brands/changes fast into “RVA,” which really reflects gentrification, new white-owned businesses like coffee shops and startups in places that can be more PoC/Black/queer-centered---RVA stands for us saying to whiteness do not to 'touch' our hair. As Richmond transforms into RVA, do not leave 'Richmond' (the black history) behind. 

TT: Who is your audience for this film? 

CB: When I first started out, I think one of the beautiful things about this project is even though I’m the director, I don’t consider myself the “leader” of the film because its driven by the narratives of the women in the film. I am evolving as well throughout the project, so if you had asked me this question when we first started, I would have said that this is a film for black women and I was intentionally trying to minimize that it is directed by a black male, but recognizing that I come from black women and that black women have been the foundation of my life: my mom, my grandmother, my mentors, and how that has always been an existing thing in my life, I think the audience is just for black women but also for black men. I think it’s important that black men see another black man holding space to honor and center black matriarchy and black feminism. Really, it’s for us and it’s by us. It’s not just about black women, it’s about black men holding space to honor black women. 

TT: How does your own personal narrative play into the film? 

CB: I was raised by a single mom, and then my mom was incarcerated for most of my later childhood years. Then my sister took me in, and my grandmother was very helpful in raising me as well and then my aunt was, so for me, I have always been surrounded by strong, black women. Yes, some of them have flaws like everybody else, but I never had such consistent male roles in my life. Especially since I am in school and learning more about the media and how media misrepresents black women, it’s always been a kind of contrast from how I see black women, because I’ve been influenced by so many different Black women, who inspired my learning and personal growth. I’ve always seen them as the backbone to so many social movements, and so it feels amazing to be using a part of my graduate experience to do a project that really roots from within me. To do a project that really centers people who have been instrumental in my life. Even though the black women in the film are not my family members, they also share narratives of being the backbone in their families, and communities, and I believe that their personal stories…I think learning from black women’s stories is educational, it is research, it is academic. But I also think that speaks to the institution and how our stories and our existence is so silent and not centered and when students here are given opportunities like this to connect to black expertise that is in the community, the relationship just builds so naturally and I don’t think you can get that in a classroom. 

TT: When will we be able to see the film? 

CB: We have had a few small screenings, and surprising to me, I just came back from the Virginia Film Festival to show the film this weekend. Spike Lee was the keynote and it was amazing to be in the same room, same space as him and really hear about his process in telling Black stories that are important to diversifying narrative and misrepresentation. It was also shown at the Afrikana Film Festival which was in October, and when we made the film with the [VCU Division for Inclusive Excellence Social Justice] grant, the goal was to finish it so we could submit it to Afrikana Film Festival because that’s the only black film festival in Richmond and we wanted their audience to see the film first and get feedback and all the feedback has been surprisingly good. Then it will also show at December First Fridays, location TBD. In the spring, when I finish the 29-minute version of the film, I definitely think we will screen it during Black History Month. What I am really trying to do with the project, I am very interested in how space dictates mission, and I think because it is such a dope opportunity that this institution – predominantly white folks are running this institution – have given us the funds, the resources to make this film and have really have had no control over how it’s directed, who’s in it thus far, I want to use this moment to inspire FUBU [for us, by us] projects like this. What I mean by that is I am not solely interested in screening the film on VCU’s campus because I think it’s important that since the community---the hairdressers, the moms, the daughters that are in this film who are not affiliated with the university---see the film in community spaces that help enhance the larger premise of this work; supporting Black diversity and plurailty in our narratives.

(photo credits: Sha Rich)

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Fashion Fusion in the Era of Globalization

by texturesmaterialculturelab

It’s the spooky time of year again, when we see some of the most heinous, offensive displays of cultural appropriation by our colleagues, neighbors, and even some of our friends. Cultural appropriation -- the practice of adopting symbols, performances, and styles of other cultural groups, is inherently about power. When we see (mostly) white revelers dress in”native” costuming for Coachella, don sombreros and faux-staches for Cinco de Mayo, or darken their skin to play caricatures of countless black entertainers and athletes, our frustrations stem from witnessing dominant cultural groups selecting elements from those who have been marginalized or oppressed by that dominant group. 

We can identify many of these performances as what Nirmal Puwar calls, “the amnesia of celebration,” by which the white body escapes racialization when wearing cultural garb, and becomes a blank slate. This cultural “amnesia” involves willful disregard for the symbolic and physical violence that people of color experience while wearing the same garments. These adopted symbols or performances are historically (or perhaps contemporarily) maligned when worn or performed on the bodies of marginalized groups. Think about the meaning of the hijab, or even the turban, after 9/11, and reports of countless brown people being ejected from airplanes solely because of their appearance. In these cases, race operates as a style, performance, or aesthetic, and through appropriation, race and culture become de-historicized and depoliticized.

But, let’s not focus on the terrible and tacky, and instead gaze upon something more pleasing to our aesthetic sensibilities. A couple of months ago, the global pop culture site, Konbini, published a piece featuring gorgeous kimonos adorned with colorful Senegalese and Nigerian patterns, and the innanets went wild!! The collection, branded under the label Wafrica, is a collaborative project developed by Serge Mouangue, a Cameroonian-born (French-bred) industrial designer, and Kururi, a Japanese kimono designer. According to Mouangue, his inspiration for the collection came from the similarities he recognized between Japanese and Cameroonian (and more generally, “African”) culture, after he spent time in Japan. He chose to merge two iconic elements from Japanese and West African culture to produce a new item; a new, floating cultural aesthetic. He remarked, “It doesn’t belong only to Africa or Japan, but carves out its own new territory, a third aesthetic.” So, rather than simply mapping one cultural aesthetic onto another, he and Kururi attempt to produce a third space that allows us to appreciate the cross-cultural values embeded within each piece. 

After seeing the gorgeous kimonos for the first time, we couldn’t help but think about painter Iona Rozeal Brown’s fantastical art that blends Japanese and African American Culture, notably ukiyo-e prints and hip-hop. Inspired by her discovery of ganguro, while living in Japan, Borwn’s work uses humor and excess to expose  intersection and cross-cultural sharing of symbols and racial performance. Ultimately, Brown highlights symbolic cultural sharing between Asian and African American cultures.

Encountering both Mouangue and Brown’s art gives us a glimpse into the imaginative possibilities produced by two different black artists, from two different continents, as they encountered Japanese culture, history, and aesthetics. What both artists expose are questions about culture, heritage, nation, race, and performance. On the Wafrica website, Mouangue gestures toward the intervention his pieces invite as we consider the cultural implications of globalization:

“In response to the argument that globalization may rob us of our cultural identity, a conversation between two ancient, strong and sophisticated identities: Japan and Africa. The conversation is about the beauty of weaving strands of our stories together.

Wafrica is about hope and embracing the possibilities made available when the unique treasures brought by each of us are juxtaposed to forma . new and enlightened international consciousness”

It is within this cultural story that we experience the most ambivalence. Despite the fact that Mouangue does not distinguish between the African continent and her fifty-four countries, how do we know when cultural blending is done right? Mouangue appears to focus on the benefits of globalization, however the blending of Japanese and “African” culture seems to do exactly what he’s claiming not to do; erase the specificity of their histories. What role does intention play here? While the stunning Wafrica collection has received an overwhelmingly positive reception, we wonder if we might also take the time to interrogate the work, the history, the process, and Wafrica’s practice and motivation, while still reveling in each garment’s exquisite beauty.

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

Black. Space. Matters.

by brandi s.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have become more and more aware of what Katherine McKittrick meant when she said in Demonic Grounds, “Black matters are spatial matters.” Last weekend, I attended the Black in Design conference, held at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and I’m getting back from participating in the Black Geographies Symposium at UC Berkeley (all black everything!). Between the two events, I started to realize that important conversations about the black body and/in the built environment are taking place in various locations and at different stages. Much of this work seems to focus on how to make place for black life. To my delight, a lot of the language is organized around black spatial imaginaries and black futures (á la Afrofuturism). It was incredible to witness such active collaborations between planners, architects, artists, activists, designers, and scholars focusing on locations that have large black populations (e.g., Detroit, NYC, Chicago) as well as those that have tiny or diminishing black populations (e.g., Portland, Seattle).

Black in Design provided a space for thinkers and practitioners to gather and strategically think through the ways blackness and the black body are reflected and refracted in the built environment. It posited historical trajectories that situated black knowledge of space and imagined blackness as a necessary tool to drive artistic and design practices.

Black Geographies brought together scholars, artists, and activists to share our ideas about the practices, images, sounds, and imaginaries associated with black geographic thought. Rather than centering our presentations on research, the organizers asked us to respond to suggested prompts that encouraged us to move beyond our disciplinary boundaries and imagine the ways in which black geographies can be conceived as a liberatory framework. 

One of the main ideas that came from the two-day event was the importance of archives. This line of reasoning aligns with our thinking at #TeamTextures, as we sort through the various ways to document material cultural production. To think fashion, the body, and the built environment together enables us to consider how important it is to mark, record, and sit with the everyday materials of culture--those that represent and reflect black life.

The significance of design and geographies extend far beyond an academic context. To recognize the spatial dimensions of black life requires us to imagine the ways our bodies interact with multiple surfaces, textures, and vibrations that continually re-inscribe our multifaceted identities. Therefore #TeamTextures emphasizes the importance of cultural practices (collecting, repurposing, recreating, and documenting) and the necessity of collaborative work and production of material and symbolic space for sharing.

The spatial production of race and culture allows us to think about how people manipulate spaces for their own needs. This practice is especially relevant when thinking about how black people have historically taken what is left over and transformed it into something universally desirable. In other words, #TeamTextures wants to bring light to the many ways black people have developed, manipulated, stimulated, and transformed objects, locations, and ideas in order to make them useful...beautiful. That requires us to investigate multiple areas: fashion, technology, architecture, print culture, prison, domestic spaces, music, art, foodways, and so much more. From the kitchen to the classroom, the break room to the bedroom; we want to focus not only on material culture produced by black people, but also that which reflects and represents blackness in meaningful ways.

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

Dillard University’s Zella Palmer on Food and the Built Environment

Zella Palmer is a #MaterialCulture Studies Visionary. The Chicago native with New Orleans roots is the chair of the Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture at Dillard University. The program was founded in 2003—shortly after Dillard granted Charles an honorary degree—with the aim of using black cultural practices such as the culinary arts to (re)connect Dillard students with the broader New Orleans community and its history. "Food studies offers a way for students and community members alike to learn the rich histories of their artisan ancestors," Palmer says.

No stranger to the kitchen, Palmer, a life-long home cook, believes that the kitchen is the key that unlocks so many hidden histories of black life and culture in the new world. Palmer has always had a fascination with food, which meant that she would often find herself in kitchens with black women across the globe who would tell her their stories as they prepared meals. Through the passing of these stories from woman to woman, generation to generation, Palmer learned the political power of food and black culinary history. Modeling this act of sharing histories, Palmer has written extensively on lesser-known nineteenth century chef de creole cuisine Nellie Murray, a black woman whose exceptional gastronomic inventions enabled her to travel the world cooking for society elites. In 2016, Palmer with a group of distinguished New Orleans women launched the annual Nellie Murray Feast in honor of the culinary legend.

Before assuming the directorship in 2014, Palmer worked in the museum world, curating and collaborating on exhibitions at some of the leading institutions in North America, including the DuSable Museum in Chicago, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. While she enjoyed this work immensely, Palmer decided to transition into higher education because she wanted to make a deep impact in the lives of young black folks.

It is a post that Palmer takes seriously. “Working with students at Dillard is a privilege,” Palmer says of the students she mentors. She’s a proponent of project-based learning, which she believes is the most effective way to teach her students how to conduct independent research. Putting social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube to creative use, Palmer turns her classroom into a material culture laboratory, developing projects and assignments for and with her students that teach them skills that are transferrable to the real world.

Palmer is currently working with her Ray Charles students to produce a documentary, The Story of New Orleans Creole Cooking: The Black Hand in the Pot. The students have been charged with writing the treatment for, filming, editing, and marketing the documentary about Black Americans’ contributions to New Orleans’ world-famous cuisine. The film also incorporates student-conducted interviews with black New Orleans residents who give their oral testimonies on the culinary traditions that have been in their families for generations.

#TeamTextures salutes Professor Palmer for her visionary interdisciplinary work and community activism. 

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#TeamTextures faves Mimi Plange and Grace Wales Bonner talk inspiration, innovation, and textile production. Museum at FIT #FashionSymposium 

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Vogue runs an article about the “beret trend” without mentioning the Black Panther Party

-Samantha

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#TeamTextures Loves Cardi B’s Bodega-inspired BET Hip Hop Awards Performance

Bronx native and Billboard chart topper Cardi B stunted at the BET Hip Hop awards last night! Emerging from a bodega in a multicolored, full-lenth fur coat, Cardi B showed loved to the community that raised her. 

Looks like Cardi B and #TeamTextures were thinking along the same lines!

This past summer, #TeamTextures curated a “Churches and Bodegas” photoshoot in Brooklyn, with photographer/filmmaker Albert Rettew. Shot completely on Rettew’s iPhone, the images explore the ways in which black and brown people experience life as we move (physically and psychically) between the spiritual culture of the church and the secular space that is the bodega. The photographs were also our response to the much-maligned 2012 Vogue Italia “Haute Mess” spread, which mocked and trivialized “ghetto” or “ratchet” culture. 

“Churches and Bodegas” explores: 

blackness and the built environment

gentrification

smart phones as insurgent technology

“ratchet” beauty/fashion culture

Look forward to more images and conversation on the “Churches & Bodegas” project. And long live Cardi B! 

#BodakYellow #BETHipHopAwards #CardiB #fashion #hoodcouture #bultenvironment #blackaesthetics #visualculture #photography #iphone #technology #gentrification #layeredspace #sustainability 

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair and the Prominence of Textiles in Black Diasporic Art (Brandi L.)

So this post is my attempt to begin grappling with questions about the intersection between black enslaved/colonial pasts, material culture, and art with political resonance. These works represent the use of textiles in art featured in the 1:54 African Art fair, which exhibits the works of Black Diasporic artists in several galleries throughout major cities, including New York City, London, and Marrakesh. This fair is in a complicated dialogue with the fact that Sotheby’s is holding its first auction of African art, concerning issues of appraisal, tokenism, representation of artists and representations of black subjects and bodies. Textiles are prominent mediums for contemporary Black artists because they imply the racialized social organization and material conditions of producers and consumers, and the tensions between them. These materials trace the commercial routes that transported and traded materials and bodies alike; routes that reflect the economic and political interests and imperial imaginations of European colonizers. The “high art” form of tapestry, valued for its distance from the human body, is transgressed by Black artists who re-inscribe specifically black bodies into the form; whose labor in textile industries make the form possible. The specific materials also situate us in specific colonial networks and trade routes, for example, crocheted doilies become popular materials for Afro-Caribbean artists. While these works still evoke black people, their rupture from black bodies and assertion into white viewing spaces allows artists to play with the subtle or even silent resistance to colonization and racialized violence evident in the textiles. In my consideration of Leigh Raiford’s text as a lens to examine black art, I hope to further study how contemporary Diasporic artists engage critical black memory that is unique to our 21st century context. I hope to work backwards and see how previous iterations of critical black art informed and provided raw material for current works. 

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

The Super Women Playlist

We want to take you on a journey through music. Through song we express the struggles women face daily. In his song “New Slaves,” Kanye West speaks on how racism affects both he and his mother in different ways. We include a variety of genres and even put a spoken word joint by Lauryn Hill in the mix. The next few songs address what it’s like to be a strong woman of color, as voices like Queen Latifah and Erykah Badu remind us that men don’t define a woman’s worth. Salt-N-Pepa tell us in “None of Your Business,” that women shouldn’t be policing other women’s behavior because everyone has the right to define strength on her own terms. We end the playlist on a positive note with Alicia Keys’ “Superwoman,” and Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine,” empowering and encouraging women to feel confident. While we continue to face adversity, we won’t let it steal our joy, our magic, and what is meant for us. As Beyoncé says in her song “Formation,” “I see it, I want it… I dream it, I work hard, I grind until I own it.” This is who we are, and we go after what we want and deserve.

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

New Slaves - Kanye West

Formation - Beyoncé

Motives and Thoughts - Lauryn Hill

U.N.I.T.Y - Queen Latifah

Tyrone - Erykah Badu

None of Yo Business - Salt-N-Peppa

Four Women - Nina Simone

Superwoman - Alicia Keys

Just Fine - Mary J. Blige

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

Rihanna dropped her line of cosmetics on September 8, opening up a new standard in the beauty world. Fenty Beauty dropped an incredible 40 foundation shades, making it easier than ever for women of color to find their shade. While many beauty brands have this many shades as well, companies usually put out a handful at first, which usually caters to white and lighter skinned individuals. After seeing how well that line does, they will then begin to expand their shade selection, adding in more brown colors. What Fenty did that no other brand has done, is put out numerous brown shades the first time around. This shows that her and her company care about people of color FIRST, and doesn’t treat them like an afterthought as many other brands do. Fenty Beauty got it right the first time around and it shows, as darker shades are allegedly flying off the shelves in Sephora stores around the country.

The idea that black women and other women of color do not wear makeup is a lie. It is only when we cannot find our shade of foundation, that we give up, making it seem like the mere 3 shades of brown companies usually put out just “aren’t selling well.” If more companies began putting out numerous brown shades in the first place, they would see that we too buy makeup at the same rate as everyone else.

High-end brands are more likely to contain more shades, but we need this to translate into drug store as well. Maybelline Fit Me has done a decent job at expanding their shade range at an affordable price. Feeling beautiful shouldn’t only come at the price of $30+ a bottle at Sephora. We need to have affordable drug store foundations expand their shade ranges as well so that everyone at every budget level can feel included.

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

On September 8, 2017, Rihanna released her new line of beauty products aimed at providing options for people of all skin tones. This product line, Fenty Beauty, carries 40 different shades ranging from very pale white skin to very dark brown skin. By bringing these options to market, Rihanna is providing products for a group of people that often do not see themselves represented, particularly darker-skinned women/femmes of color. Not only do these options allow for people of color to participate in a culture that celebrates their beauty, but the ad campaigns for the product necessarily include models of all different shades, bringing diversity to another arena that has been dominated by white women.

Though these new shades of make-up are important to make young women/femmes of color feel included and represented, and give them the ability to celebrate their beauty or create art with their bodies, this release should not come without a discussion of the beauty industry. Some make-up artists argue that make-up is an art that allows them to express themselves and present themselves in the best way they see fit, but it is also important to consider the larger industry this is fueling. Young women spend millions of dollars on beauty products every year, with the goal of altering their appearance in some way. This is often in order to appease expectations of women, and when women do go without make-up, they are frequently ridiculed or questioned. Every woman I know has been asked on a day without make-up if they are tired or sick, or has been considered unprofessional as a result of their bare face. The idea that women’s natural faces are not “professional” or acceptable needs to be challenged, and the role that this ideology has in creating and continuing the beauty industry should be considered. Though one can use make-up in a way that makes them feel empowered, this make-up is often purchased from a corporation that makes its money by profiting off the policing of women’s appearances (corporations which are often led by a white man – including Sephora, where Fenty Beauty is sold). The widening of this market to more people of color can lead to the empowerment of women/femmes of color, but also increases the profit for these companies.

Rihanna has certainly done an excellent thing for her community by welcoming women/femmes of color into the beauty industry in a new way, and it is exciting to see a successful woman of color using her position to advocate and make changes for other women of color. The economic implications of this line, however, cannot go unquestioned. 

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

40 SHADES OF BLACK.  

Every morning I wake up and I thank Robyn Fenty (Rihanna) for beating out all her other competitors during fertilization. I think about how lucky I am to be born in the same era as her and I pity those who���ll miss her reign. September 8th, 2017 Rihanna debuted her makeup collection Fenty Beauty for the world and SNATCHED isn’t the word for it’s range of product. While Queen Rihanna holds as the face of her beauty empire, this isn’t what all the buzz is about. 40 SHADES OF FOUNDATION. 40 SHADES OF SOLICITED SHADE TO THE ENTIRE BEAUTY COMMUNITY. This line is absolutely crucial, not only for women of all colors(or lack thereof), but it instantaneously created a space for dark skinned women especially. Stores like Mac or Sephora rarely accommodate makeup for girls as dark as Dukie Thot in the picture above. Rihanna celebrates the black woman in her line and it shows through sales nation wide. The line includes every black woman of the diaspora so it is safe to say that Fenty beauty will help not only women in America, but across the world. The biggest message in the release of Rihanna’s makeup line is that “BLACK GIRLS SHOW OUT WHEN YOU TAKE CARE OF THEM!” The driving consumer behind Fenty Beauty are darker women and it speaks to how much black girls love to play with makeup. WE LIKE TO PLAY TOO. For eons the makeup industry has casted out the diaspora of black women throughout the world which allowed for lack of representation. Lack of allowance to play dress up. Fenty Beauty opens the gates to the playground for all women of all colors..(and I mean that literally). One can admire the RihRih’s blatant resistance to the beauty world as much as they can admire how poppin that Trophy Wife highlight is! From one black woman to another RihRih I thank you. 

P.S: To all my Albino Black Women, Fenty Beauty reigns supreme. 

[texturesmaterialculturelab-blog]

Why Issa Rae for Covergirl is a Win for Black Girls Everywhere

Desiree Lesane

Issa Rae, best known for her role in the HBO series Insecure, has just landed herself a spot promoting Covergirl. In her announcement tweet she states, “In all my awkward, black years I never imagined I’d be a @COVERGIRL! SO honored & SO excited.” To be a Covergirl would be an honor to anyone, but as a black woman it holds an especially important spot. To land any magazine cover or to promote a beauty brand as a black woman is special because the position usually goes to white women. To be the face of beauty is something many black women don’t get the opportunity to do. Knowing that your brown skin was deemed beautiful enough for once is enough to make anyone smile inside and out.

Reaching out to Issa, Oprah Winfrey responded with how she “cried” upon seeing the first polaroid of her first Vogue cover in 1998. To relish in being told you’re beautiful enough by people who set the standard is an overwhelming feeling. Knowing that there are young girls who will be looking up to you and learning that their brown skin is beautiful too is an honor. 

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Gabrielle Union released a hair car line into Ulta stores back in February of this year. Recently Buzzfeed uploaded a video of two women trying it on their natural hair. They had mostly positive reviews although they didn’t love every product which can be expected. In the beginning of the video they mentioned how Gabrielle Union, when they were younger, were one of the only girls girls they saw on TV and in movies that looked like them. I know celebrities gain a lot of hype for releasing products, just because they’re famous, but it really shows how important visibility is and was. Women who loved seeing Union because she looked like them, are more likely to buy her hair products because, hopefully, she would know what would work for them. It’s always hard to know what to use, and seeing a icon you’ve grown to relate to create something, hopefully that would work for you as well.

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About a year ago, this huge challenge went around called the “Kylie Jenner Challenge” which basically played off of Kylie’s multiple lip injections that made her lips look bigger. So many girls (and by “many girls” I mean mostly those who aren’t black) put cups to their lips and sucked at its opening to create swelling, essentially causing their lips to be bigger than normal. Even after the challenge, little make-up/beauty trinkets to make small lips appear bigger were created. My opinion? This has been one of the most absurd ideas I have ever heard in my life, for starters. Also, these girls are physically causing their lips to hurt! Could you imagine the swelling!? Furthermore, this is something that women of color RARELY ever have to worry about because let’s face it…big lips usually comes naturally for us. And all the while, white women are getting praised for these lip “plumpers” and injections, although we’ve had it all along and get no buzz whatsoever. It isn’t only lips; tanning to looker “darker”, butt injections…all replicate the natural physicalites of a black woman, the only difference is while blacks are shamed for it, it is absolutely stunning on Becky. Why is this? And more importantly, can we at least get some type of credit for what we already have? For the longest, nothing has ever been acceptable on a black woman; the way her hair is, how wide or big her hips are, how big her lips are…but put it on a white woman and everyone praises her? All I can day to that honestly is, try again, Kylie.

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Gwen Beetham asks “Where Is the Maternity-Wear for Queer Folks?”

One step into a maternity clothing store, and you are hit with it: the bows, the ties around the belly and the ruffles — accessories that, outside of the 17th century at least, scream “girl!” The names of pregnancy clothing providers themselves also skew toward the feminine: PinkBlush, Motherhood Maternity, Isabella and Oliver, Fillyboo, Hotmilk Maternity, a Pea in the Pod, Séraphine. All of this can pose a dilemma for queer folks, people who identify on the more masculine end of the spectrum, and, well, those who grew out of bows and ruffles in grade school.

Before I got pregnant, friends both queer and straight warned me of the limits of maternity clothing: the uncomfortable fabrics, the less-than-desirable patterns. What I didn’t expect was the way that pregnancy clothing would affect my queer identity. Read More