How the South Shaped a Nation – Essence

The most important cities for fashion are New York, London, Milan, and Paris. But these aren’t the only capitals where fashion matters. And in a country like the United States, unique sartorial configurations can be found everywhere, even in places you might least expect them or tend to be overlooked, like the South. But as WEB DuBois once astutely proclaimed, “As the South goes, so goes the nation.” The Southern designers, retailers, archivists, and consumers who have kept fashion alive have shaped the region as an arbiter steeped in history. In the South, fashion has always had a say.

The Wall Street Journal In July, HBC, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, announced it was acquiring Neiman Marcus Group for $2.65 billion. The original Neiman Marcus store, established in 1907, is on Main Street in downtown Dallas, and some of the company’s offices are located directly above its sales floor. Shortly after the acquisition was announced, Sarah Hepola wrote in The Dallas Morning News The historic retail store, she said, “has defined life in Dallas.” Neiman’s, she said, “represents the promise of transformation,” “a story of commerce and a story of Dallas,” but “also an American story” emblematic of a country known for its reinvention. The upscale department store has appealed to its local clientele and beyond.

Annette Becker, historian and director of the Texas Fashion Collection, points out that the production of ready-to-wear women’s clothing on a scale that could be distributed nationwide after the war led to the development of “an American fashion identity, and certainly regional fashion identities.” She notes that Stanley Marcus, who once ran the family business Neiman Marcus, traveled to London, Paris, and Italy to work with designers on “how to expand after the war to satisfy the voracious appetites of American commerce.” As he explained to them the peculiarities of the American fashion system (its need for rapid manufacturing, for example), he also informed them of the different tastes and climates that shaped people’s wardrobes across the country. The merchant had the ear of Emilio Pucci, whom he “taught how to translate the Italian way of dressing for people who were shopping at Neiman Marcus because the climate in Italy is not that different from Texas,” Becker says.

Perhaps this is what gets lost in discussions of culture and the influence of fashion: that consumers, like designers, whose contributions cannot be limited to one or two cities in a country as large as the United States, also determine its significance. Which is why a recent tweet claiming that New Yorkers laid the foundations of Southern dress styles struck me and many other X users as odd and wrong. To think of it, however, is ahistorical, extremely myopic, and, inevitably, anti-black. But it’s not surprising. Many Americans still see the South as a backward place, devoid of contemporary relevance. Soft. And marginal.

The largest and most populous region in the country couldn’t be further from the truth. Plus, it’s home to many Black Americans and the home of our most famous Black fashion titans.

I had just finished a lecture at the University of North Texas, home of the Texas Fashion Collection, when I wandered into Becker’s office, eager to peruse the collections. Like a kid in a candy store that happens to be her job, she pulled on a pair of white gloves and asked which designer I wanted to see first. Without hesitation, I answered, “Patrick Kelly!” The pioneering Mississippi designer was the first African-American member of the Chamber’s ready-to-wear division, with a high-fashion clientele that included Madonna, Cicely Tyson, and Gloria Steinem, to name a few. Becker brought out two of his designs: first, a one-shouldered beige minidress trimmed with wooden buttons that formed a heart in the center; followed by a black pinstriped denim skirt suit from spring 1989 with white, yellow, and red dice buttons.

“The buttons that became so important to Kelly’s practice were the product of a matriarchal figure who was a part of her life and who brought buttons home to fix things, to make things new,” says Rikki Byrd, curator and assistant professor of visual culture at the University of Texas at Austin. “They shaped what became this Parisian brand that was started by a Black man from the South. We can marry these elements and these moments where items that aren’t considered luxury or fashionable have a particular value for Black people that influences the way we dress and the way we design,” Byrd adds.

Consider Sunday dress, a tradition that originated in the black Southern Baptist Church and is now found in every region, denomination, and even social class, and which exemplifies a form of self-presentation of the highest dignity, a training camp for making a good impression. I cannot fail to mention Sergio Hudson, a native of Ridgeway, South Carolina, the women’s dress administrator at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Number One Observatory Circle. Or our beloved Andres – Leon Talley and 3000 – men, whose style is so meticulously curated and so meticulously presented that it reminds us that dandyism is ultimately in the hands of the man.

Talley, an avowed Southern Francophile, donated much of his work to the “ALT Collection” at the Savannah College of Art & Design, where Louisiana native Christopher John Rogers studied. For the 2022 Met Gala, “In America: An Anthology of Fashion,” Rogers paid tribute to Elizabeth Keckley in a gown he made for actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Keckley, born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, purchased her freedom in 1855 and made a name for herself as a seamstress, spending time in Washington, D.C., dressing first lady Mary Todd Lincoln and the wives of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

Her silk quilt, made between 1850 and 1875 with floral motifs and embroidered eagles in relief, is believed to contain fabric scraps from dresses she sewed for clients, including Mrs. Lincoln, according to the Kent State University Museum. The tradition of black quilting in America originated in the South. Many of us are familiar with the patchwork blankets that found their way into our grandmothers’ closets as extra blankets for sleeping relatives. However, their qualities have more to do with the clothing of black Americans than anything we might imagine about them.

They explain the aesthetic diversity, eccentricity, and cultural pride with which we dress, once offensive to the white Western eye (and perhaps still today). They also remind us of where we come from, an acceptance of our differences in a world that encourages conformity. Southerners offer a type of clothing that possesses this spirit and expresses it in the most self-assured way. It is as prevalent and necessary in our clothing as ever, and that is not going to change, below and above the Mason-Dixon Line.

In a 1998 study, the late professor and fashion theorist Gwendolyn O’Neal applied the African American model of quilt making to understand the inner workings of how we dress. “The visual balance created between precision” and random combinations, “bright colors, large-scale patterns, and multiple rhythms” still exists. They explain the aesthetic variation, eccentricity, and cultural pride with which we dress, once and perhaps still offensive to the white Western eye.

It’s also a reminder of where we come from, an acceptance of our differences in a world that encourages conformity. Southerners offer a type of dress that has that spirit and expresses itself with confidence. It’s more necessary than ever in our clothing, and that’s not going to change—under and above the Mason-Dixon.