Round 1 - 2022 (In America: An Anthology of Fashion / Gilded Glamour) - Match 90 of 101

Victor Glemaud (H&M), left

“As soon as I heard the theme, I knew exactly the direction I wanted to go in!” Glemaud tells ESSENCE. “To me, Gilded Glamour means excess and over the top dressing, but also a celebration of American design.” ... Glemaud’s monochromatic approach was a modern interpretation of a classic tuxedo, and his matching coat that extended to the floor and trailed behind him was a tribute to the great André Leon Talley and his infamous capes. ... “My look was a tribute to the late great Mr. André Leon Talley. I wanted to pay homage to his signature looks with a dramatic opera coat,” says Glemaud. “The opera coat itself is inspired by American couturier Charles James.” "For so many years, André Leon Talley had such a strong presence at the Met Gala. There were all the times he worked the event, and then, towards the end of his time at Vogue, the years he hosted the magazine’s livestream of the red carpet, offering his insightful, incisive commentary live from his perch at the top of the museum’s steps. Though that relationship ended sourly, as he recounted in his 2020 memoir, Talley unequivocally left his mark on the event. For designer Victor Glemaud, the event’s return to the first Monday in May was an opportunity to pay homage to the late editor, who passed away in January. “When you think of the theme and you think of ‘gilded glamour’ and you think of André, it’s all one and the same,” he says. The designer attended the 2022 Met Gala as a guest of H&M. The opportunity came up “quite organically,” Glemaud says: He’s worked with the Swedish fashion company on the Met Gala in the past, designing looks for its guests and escorting them up the red carpet. When H&M reached out, he floated the idea of a tribute to Talley, to which “they immediately said yes.” Talley was synonymous with elegant, voluminous capes, so Glemaud and H&M created a silk taffeta opera coat for the red carpet “that instantly says ‘André,'” worn over a white tuxedo. “The colors, the richness of it, the refinement, the finishing, the excellence that André stood for — it’s all in this look,” Glemaud says. Beyond referencing Talley’s signature cape, the designer nodded to other aspects of the late editor’s style: “André was all about classic menswear and beautiful English tailoring, and I think we have a lot of those elements, from the lapel to the construction of the very classic tuxedo. It’s very traditional. We’ve made it in these shades of ivory so it feels more contemporary, but the cut and everything about it is very traditional, which was very André — down to the silk socks and the loafer.”" (x)(x)

vs. Questlove (Zegna, Gee’s Bend, Greg Lauren), right

"I'm kind of taking a different angle on the Gilded Age. I'm kind of representing African American people who were living in the construction period, so I had Gee's Bend, these women from Alabama, do me a special quilt to represent Africans and African Americans post-slavery. ... Zegna made my coat owe tribute to André Leon Talley." (x)

Gustina Atlas, “Variation on Dresden Plate Quilt” (1998), cotton; machine- pieced and hand-quilted, 81 1/2 x 80 inches

‘Of Salt and Spirit’ Celebrates the Legacy of Black Southern Quilters

You may have heard of the remarkable quilters of Gee’s Bend, but do you know about the Crossroads Quilters, like Gustina Atlas? Or Hystercine Rankin? Mary Mayfair Matthews? You’re in luck if you have a chance to visit Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South at the Mississippi Museum of Art, which shines a light on dozens of incredible Black Southern quilters and takes a celebratory approach to showcasing their myriad styles and techniques.

All images courtesy of Mississippi Museum of Art

Clancy McGrew, quilted and appliquéd by Jeraline Nicholas, “Storytime at the Library” (2004), fabric; machine-pieced, appliquéd, embroidered, and hand-quilted, 41 3/4 x 83 1/8 inches

Mabel Williams, “Improvisational Strip Quilt” (1968), cotton, polyester, wool, twill; hand-pieced and hand- quilted with appliquéd and embroidered backing, 85 x 65 inches

Clancy McGrew, quilted by Tammy McGrew, “Clancy’s Beauty Salon” (2004), fabric; machine-pieced, appliquéd, and hand-quilted, 67 5/8 x 49 1/2 inches

Irene Williams, Blocks and Strips Quilt, 2003, cotton & polyester (Museum of Art, Philadelphia)

"Quilts made by generations of women in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, have hung in the Met, the Whitney, and the Smithsonian Museum of Art. They’ve been shown at galleries and art fairs around the world. But if the quilters want to directly sell their world-famous quilts — vibrant, often asymmetrical, charismatic works, originally hand-stitched for warmth from scavenged fabric — they’ve had to wait for prospective buyers to come to them.

That requires a drive deep into the Alabama Black Belt, along red dirt roads with little to no cell signal, through an isolated stretch of grassy meadows and pine woods, to a community deep in an oxbow of the Alabama River that, if the ferry’s not running, is nearly 40 miles from the closest hotel, supermarket, or pharmacy.

At least, this is how it worked before February of 2021.

Despite their celebrity, much of the quilters’ fame is based on visitors sharing their work outside of their community — and historically, the financial benefits have gone to people outside of their community, too. Occasionally, some of that trickles back in the form of one-off gallery sales, or copyright royalties. But it hasn’t been enough to lift this Black community, renowned in the art world, out of what the United Nations has called some of the most extreme conditions of poverty in the developed world.

One thing the Gee’s Bend quilters have needed is an easier way to sell quilts directly — control what they offer, set the prices, and reap all the profits. So, a year ago this month, three generations of Gee’s Bend quilters launched their own Etsy shops, turning the online platform into the accessible, direct-to-consumer sales opportunity they had been missing.

None of them had ever used Etsy before, but some were certainly familiar with it — and not for the opportunity it offered them. For years, a chorus of independent crafters had been peddling #geesbendinspired quilts on Etsy. While they racked up sales leveraging the Gee’s Bend name, the women behind their key search term carried on quilting when they could acquire fabric.

These days, when fourth-generation quilter Claudia Pettway Charley spots a “Gee’s Bend-inspired” quilt on Etsy, she’ll reach out to the seller to ask them how exactly they are related to her or her community. She hopes to engage them in a thoughtful dialogue about appropriation. She rarely receives a response.

“We put a lot of work into it, and it’s about our life,” Charley says of quilting. She recently took on the job of community manager in Gee’s Bend, vetting partnership opportunities and acting as a liaison between outsiders and her community. “We were struggling. These were made from scraps. Some was old denim that had been worn by my grandfather, torn and faded. My grandmother used corn and feed sacks, washed them and sometimes bleached them to have different colors. It wasn’t ‘I’m just going to go and make this.’ We used these quilts for warmth. It was about our struggle, and our survival.”

Charley might feel differently, she offers, if these makers — who may have, say, studied textiles at art school — sent some of their profits back to the community that inspired them. But that doesn’t happen. “This work is ‘inspired’ in your mind, because you see the quilt pattern,” Charley says. “But you don’t know my story. And you’re going to try and duplicate it — and go to Joann Fabrics to do it?”"

Mary Lee Bendolph (Gee's Bend)