Lifestyle
Black Style, Made to Measure
Once all the spilled champagne has been mopped up from this year’s Met Gala, the exhibition that it’s toasting, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” will examine Black dandies, bespoke suiting and the Black men who so often set the standard of what it means to be stylish.
Black fashion lovers may feel the celebration is long overdue, but the show provides an opportunity to consider all that “tailoring” can mean — especially to Black people in the United States.
Ahead of the Costume Institute show, Black craftspeople across the country — a milliner in South Carolina, men’s tailors in Chicago, a jeweler in Los Angeles — reflected on the power and joy that can be found in tailoring.
Custom Clothiers
Christopher Brackenridge and Milton Latrell
Two sons of seamstresses help men look their best at Agriculture, a boutique in Chicago.
Photographs and video by Nolis Anderson for The New York Times
“We’d both seen how confident the clients of our moms became when they wore custom clothing. They had confidence. They walked a certain way. Their posture changed. And we was like, ‘If that makes a Black man feel good, why not be a part of that?’” — Milton Latrell
The boutique’s clients include famous Black actors, pastors and musicians, as well as local students getting outfitted for prom.
Mr. Brackenridge said he especially loved working on pieces that clients have had in their families for generations and finding new ways of updating them so they feel modern. A 60-year-old jacket that once belonged to a client’s grandfather was a particular highlight.
“I love when a client is able to come in and bring a piece that their grandfather may have worn and we are able to update that style to now.” — Christopher Brackenridge
“We like to put things like hidden watch pockets and coin pockets” for a little surprise, Mr. Latrell said.
“When you’re wearing something custom or just customized to you, you feel debonair — extraordinary, even — like you can accomplish anything,” said Milton Latrell, co-founder of Agriculture, a Chicago boutique specializing in custom suiting and styling for men.
For many Black people, having a tailor is not an extravagance, but a necessity. The right tailor can take an ill-fitting pair of pants and make them flatter every contour of the body. The right tailor can transform scraps of fabric into a treasured dress, skirt or jacket — all while leaving customers looking and feeling their best. And when customers feel their best, they exude a swagger and confidence that feels like a natural part of being Black.
Tailor
Cheryl A. Lofton
A third-generation tailor in Washington initially wanted nothing to do with the family business.
“My niche in the business was alterations. I wanted to make sure that women knew that they could come in and have the same treatment that the men got in a tailoring business.”
Scissors originally belonging to JC Lofton, Ms. Lofton’s grandfather who started the business in 1939. Black Tailors
J.C. Lofton, left, in Washington D.C. in the 1940s, who founded Lofton Custom Tailoring in 1939.
“My mom dressed up to go to the grocery store. She did not go out of this house without a nice, well-fitted dress, her makeup done, and her high-heeled shoes. Never, ever did my mom go out without being dressed up, as did all of the grown-ups in our family. They were always well dressed.”
Cheryl A. Lofton and her grandfather, Joe Cephus (J.C.) in the 1970’s.
Like Ms. Lofton, I have family in the business. For most of my own childhood my mother was a tailor, making wedding gowns, bridesmaid dresses and suits in a room in the back of our house in Harare, Zimbabwe. Her customers, a mix of friends, family and strangers, always seemed to leave her de facto studio feeling joyful. It was in that back room that I found an affinity for tulle and feathers, and learned just how special clothes made just for you could make you feel.
When my family arrived in the United States, my mother stopped sewing professionally, but she always made time to ensure that my clothes — most of which were thrifted or hand-me-downs donated by our new community — felt one of a kind. She would swap out a plain black button for a fun mismatched pink one, extend a hem on pants that were a tad too short, use extra fabric on a skirt that was too big to create pleats and ruching. Even when my clothes weren’t new, they felt special.
Costumer
Laron Nelson
The owner of Opulent Designs in New Orleans says his goal is to make outfits that are “more costume than fashion.”
Photographs and video by Camille Lenain for The New York Times
“I use a lot of sequined fabrics — a lot of velvet, satins, lamés, lace, brocade, rhinestone fabrics — because for Mardi Gras, everything is all about the glitter and the shine. The glitz.”
Locally, Mr. Nelson is best known for his custom wire working and feather collars, worn by participants in New Orleans’s famed second lines and pageants.
“I started creating it so I wouldn’t have to spend the type of money it cost to buy from other people,” Mr. Nelson said.
Mr. Nelson’s mother and sister help with the business, whose studio is in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans.
“A lot of men are deterred from wearing what they want to wear because they may feel like something is not masculine. But my thing is, if you’re masculine, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are and what you wear.”
For Mr. Nelson, more is more.
At 18, I moved to Rome for school, and within days of arriving, found myself wandering through the Termini neighborhood in search of a barber and a tailor. I was tight on cash, but I wouldn’t be caught in clothes that were too tight or too loose. I found a student tailor who shared a studio space with other young designers.
Years later, as a graduate student in New York, I often hauled a bag of thrifted clothes to a Harlem dry cleaner for alterations. The store was next to my barbershop and a few blocks away from the market where I bought fabric for scarves and head wraps — which, of course, was walking distance from my cobbler. In my late 20s in Atlanta, I made sure to find a tailor, a barber and a jeweler to repair my most beloved pieces before I signed an apartment lease.
Jewelry Designer
Maggi Simpkins
A Los Angeles artist who doesn’t want to make earrings or bracelets “just for the sake of making pretty things.”
Photographs and video by Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times
“We’re creating these pieces with the intention that they’ll be passed down throughout generations and continue to tell the stories of the people that once wore these pieces.”
“I used to have a locket growing up and I loved it and I thought it was magic because you would open up and there’d be a little photo inside of it,” Ms. Simpkins said, “but I never understood why the photos were hidden.”
“My earliest memory of jewelry is my mom going through her jewelry box and taking out pieces and telling me stories about ‘Your grandfather gave this to your grandmother on their 25th wedding anniversary,’ or ‘Your grandfather got this when he was 16 years old during communion.’ So I grew up hearing stories about family members that were no longer alive.”
Ms. Simpkins in her Los Angeles studio.
Although Ms. Simpkins makes all kinds of jewelry, she’s best known for her nontraditional engagement rings.
“From an early age, jewelry was just magic to me because it had the ability to hold these stories from past loved ones.”
You can find Black artisans almost anywhere: on main streets in the bustling part of town, or tucked away in studios in basements, attics, spare bedrooms or even garages. In these spaces, they are constantly experimenting and creating.
I first met Natalie Simmons, a hat maker born and raised in Charleston, S.C., at her store in the West Ashley district of the city in 2019. I explained to her that I was in town for a wedding that called for a hat, but I didn’t know what to get. Days later, she handed me a fascinator with a long black and white feather.
Milliner
Natalie Simmons
A hat maker in Charleston, S.C., who sources materials from Italy and parts of Africa.
Photographs and video by Donaven Doughty for The New York Times
Molds and a measuring tool that Ms. Simmons uses to make all types of hats: fedoras, cloches, boaters, bowlers, sun hats and more.
“My grandmother had hats in every color. If you walked into her closet, her closet was just lined with hat boxes. There were hat boxes up on the shelves. There were hat boxes on the floor. They were just her coveted thing. She had a hat that matched every outfit. She had gloves and handbags, but the hats were something to be cherished.”
“We don’t just take a hat off the rack and just plop it down on our heads,” Ms. Simmons said. “We add a curious little tilt or a feather, or add a pin, or a special detail that just makes it stand out.”
“A hat that perfectly fits your face and fits the structure of your body can bring something to life. It’s the one thing that can really make an outfit stand out and really tell a story.”
In her Charleston studio, Ms. Simmons makes custom hats in addition to restoring older ones.
Designers shared similar early memories of falling in love with their craft at home, where they were surrounded by moms, aunts and grandmothers. Their work allows them to continue to tell their family’s stories.
Western Wear Designer
Dymond Taylor
Dating a cowboy opened her eyes to an opportunity in Houston.
Photographs by Arturo Olmos for The New York Times
“It’s really easy to design for our people because they don’t want to look like anybody else.”
Ms. Taylor loves to design with leather, denim and — of course — fringe.
“When I started this brand, I wasn’t seeing what I wanted in stores. We always set the trends. We always create uniqueness. It’s just deeply rooted in us to do that.”
Sometime around her rodeo-going days, Ms. Taylor realized that the disproportionately white images of cowboys and western life that she encountered weren’t reflective of what she knew to be cowboy culture and history. B Stone was born out of that frustration.
“People might not instantly associate Western wear with suiting and tailoring, but when you go back to the root of it, Western wear has always been presented as a suit — the pant, the hat, the boot and the guitar.”
Ms. Taylor describes her brand as melding “cowboy style and urban style, mixing streetwear with country.”
In shops and studios scattered across the country, the American designers and tailors I spoke with represented exactly what this year’s Met exhibition and gala hope to honor. Each one takes some element of an outfit and elevates it, empowering their Black clients and celebrating their collective history in the process.
Sunday Puzzle
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This week’s challenge
Today’s puzzle is a tribute to Mimi. Every answer is a familiar two word phrase or name in which each word starts with the letters MI-.
Ex. Assignment for soldiers –> MILITARY MISSION
1. Pageant title for a contestant from Detroit
2. One of the Twin Cities
3. Nickname for the river through New Orleans
4. Super short skirt
5. Neighborhood in Los Angeles that contains Museum Row
6. Just over four times the distance from the earth to the moon
7. Goateed sing-along conductor of old TV
8. American financier who pioneered so-called “junk bonds”
9. Little accident
10. Land-based weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal
11. In “Snow White,” the evil queen’s words before “on the wall”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Benita Rice, of Salem, Ore. Name a famous foreign landmark (5,4). Change the eighth letter to a V and rearrange the result to make an adjective that describes this landmark. What landmark is it?
Answer
Notre Dame –> Renovated
Winner
Chee Sing Lee of Bangor, Maine
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What’s the movie and who are the people?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, April 23 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
This story is part of Image’s April’s Thresholds issue, a tour of L.A. architecture as it’s actually experienced.
A landmark is a landmark because it tells you that you’re home now — the piece of earth you’ve chosen to inhabit saying, “You’ve made it back, congratulations.” We identify our cities with their landmarks, and because we identify with our cities, we identify with the landmarks too. They are us and we are them, mirroring each other through eternity. A city like New York or Chicago, with the Chrysler Building, the Bean, etc., has landmarks that exist in the world’s popular consciousness. But L.A.’s most cherished landmarks belong to us and us alone, a secret you’re let in on if you live here long enough and pay attention.
The Fashion Nova baddie in horizontal sprawl off the Vertigo, for example, is an emblem for those in the know. Our twisted version of a capitalist guardian angel, patron saint of spandex in a cropped matching set. Welcome to El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Fashion Nova. Merging on the 110 South from the 10 East while the sunset burns and traffic thickens is a miracle in more ways than one, and in the spirit of compulsively performing the sign of the cross when you pass a church on the freeway, this billboard is deserving of its own acknowledgment.
It may not be the landmark L.A. asked for, but in Sayre Gomez’s painting “Vertigo,” you begin to understand why it’s the one we deserve. At the opening for “Precious Moments,” Gomez’s solo show at David Kordansky, the room was vibrating. A game of energetic ping-pong unfolded underneath the gallery’s fluorescent light, beams of identification, recollections or stabs of grief bouncing off each piece in the exhibition. People were seeing hyperspecific parts of a city they love reflected in a hyperspecific way — for better and for worse. Recognition has two edges and they both happen to be sharp. Gomez twists the knife deeper for a good cause: He wants you not just to look but to really see.
In his work exist iconic signs of beloved local establishments — like the Playpen — the blinding glint reflecting off downtown’s skyline, telephone poles regarded as totems. The line to see Gomez’s replica of L.A.’s graffiti towers, “Oceanwide Plaza,” snaked through the gallery’s courtyard. Once inside, at least three graffiti writers whose names were blasted on the replica pointed it out proudly, even gave out stickers to take home. The truth can be beautiful and it can be ugly — in this case it’s both — on the flip side showing up in the form of smog, tattered flags and an abandoned graffiti tower that starkly represents the pitfalls of capitalism and greed, a neon arrow pointing to the homelessness crisis.
Because the Vertigo is something everybody who lives here recognizes as central to a sort of framework of Los Angeles. And I think the encampment has become that as well. It’s connecting these integral components — something that’s more revelatory and more fun with something that’s more grave.
— Sayre Gomez
In the main gallery, I was stuck on “Vertigo.” On the 12-foot canvas, my eye went to the place out of focus: the thin strip of billboard in the background featuring a young woman with sand-dune hips, patent knee-high boots and long black hair laid up on her side, wearing cat ears and a tiger bodysuit as flush as second skin. The model made the kind of eye contact that felt dangerous — might cause an accident if you’re not careful. “#1 Halloween Destination … FASHION NOVA,” it read. I knew her, anyone who has driven through the two main arteries of Los Angeles knows her. The black-and-white smiley motif of the Vertigo, an events space, sat right next to her face, just happy to be there, it seemed, above a painted sign that says “Ready to Party?”
The sky was the color of cotton candy, but the stale kind that’s been hardening in a plastic bag for days after the fair. Something rancid about it. In the foreground of the painting was a car encampment with a tattered floral sheet woven through the windows, cloth tarps and couch cushions creating a shield against the elements. Small plastic children’s toys lined at the top of the car — dinosaurs and dump trucks and sharks — creating their own shrunken skyline in front of the Vertigo, signaling that young kids likely lived there. It’s less juxtaposition for juxtaposition’s sake and more an accurate reflection of the breakneck duality of living in a place like L.A.
Even angels exist within the context of their environments. Our Fashion Nova baddie hangs off the Vertigo, a building that has used its ad space as physical clickbait and political posturing for over a decade. It’s promoting the kind of fast fashion brand that’s been regarded as a case study on the industry’s environmental impact. In the years the billboard has been up, it’s looked over dozens and dozens of car encampments like the one depicted in Gomez’s piece.
She feels dubious, yes. But no less like ours.
Julissa James: I’ve lived in L.A. for 13 years now. For me, the city and the architecture of the city is less the Frank Lloyd Wrights and Frank Gehrys — there’s that — but other landmarks that signal, “Oh, I’m home.” The Fashion Nova baddie above the Vertigo has always been that for me. Your piece is layered and there’s so much more to it than just that, but that’s the first thing I saw and was like, “Whoa. I need to talk to Sayre. We need to talk about ‘Vertigo.’”
Sayre Gomez: It’s like L.A.’s Statue of Liberty. It’s the city of anti-landmarks, you know what I mean? I mean, there’s the Hollywood sign, which I think is so telling, because it’s the remnants of a real estate venture. The city is built by real estate schemes and 100 years later we’re feeling the effects of it. You’ve got empty skyscrapers and a massive homeless catastrophe. L.A. doesn’t really have real landmarks. It has anti-landmarks.
JJ: When did the Fashion Nova billboard above the Vertigo click for you as something that felt representative of the city, or something that you wanted to depict?
SG: My studio is in Boyle Heights, so I pass that billboard multiple times a week. This is my 20th year in L.A. and that building’s always been a big mystery to me. It was empty when I moved here before this guy Shawn Farr bought it and turned it into Casa Vertigo. I think he probably makes more money on it with the ad space than anything. I know nobody who has ever been there. Very mysterious to me. So that’s what I was drawn to.
(Paul Salveson from David Kordansky Gallery)
The Vertigo has always been mysterious to me. And that whole fashion industry is mysterious to me — the kind of shmatta, American Apparel-adjacent, or maybe coming out of the wake of that. These kinds of businesses, or the representations of these businesses, how do they function and how do they flourish? Is it aboveboard? What more perfectly encapsulates that than that building? It’s this weird thing you can’t quite figure out but somehow it has a lot of money and then it’s an event space, supposedly billed as that. Clearly it’s this big ad thing, and I’m very interested in the changing dynamics of capital. The capital of yesteryear, which was based on the brick and mortar, where things are being made in a specific location, maybe on an assembly line or in a specific way, to a kind of capital that is based solely on advertising or on viewership. These beautiful buildings acting as pedestals for some kind of ad space, you know? It becomes an anti-landmark for me. Something where I’m like, “Oh, there’s that thing again.”
JJ: It’s this gorgeous Beaux Arts building …
SG: It’s a Freemason building!
JJ: When I’ve talked to some people about the Vertigo, they’re like, “the Fashion Nova building?”
SG: They always have the woman in the same pose — same pose, different clothes. If you remember before Fashion Nova, they would have these provocative ad campaigns or provocative slogans. “Twerk Miley” was up, remember that? They did a Trump one: “TRUMP NOW.” They did one for Kanye when he ran for president. The 10 and the 110 are literally the crossroads of the city, so it’s really poised to be a special building. It has a special designation because of the location.
JJ: Talk to me about the process of doing this piece. Where did it start and how did it evolve?
SG: I was cruising around that vicinity trying to see if I could get a good vantage point to take photos of Vertigo. And then I stumbled upon this car — the car that’s in the foreground of the painting. Anytime I see an encampment that has kids’ toys, things that reference back to the lives of children, it hits hard. But I like to lay it all out there. I like to make things confrontational. I want it to be difficult. The painting isn’t based on a one-to-one photo [Gomez paints from a composite rendering of images he’s taken around town], but I knew that I wanted to use that car, and I knew I wanted to get the Vertigo building, and so I started just messing around with different iterations. I could never find a good angle to take a good photo of the building, so I just went on Vertigo’s website and I was like, “I’m just using these.” I switched the sky and put a more moody, atmospheric sky in.
JJ: Which I loved, because we know that feeling — you’re merging onto the 110 and you see a beautiful sunset. The euphoria of like, “L.A. is the best city in the world.” But you know what? What I found so interesting about your piece is that it was revealing to me about myself, but also about so many of us that live in L.A. and have lived here for years and have developed a jadedness. When I saw your piece, immediately I was like, “Oh my God, the Vertigo! The Vertigo! The Vertigo!” And then I was like, “OK, wait, hold on, there’s so much more going on here.” But the fact that my eye went to that first instead of the car encampment, the kids’ toys, brought up a lot of questions about my own relationship to the city and the things that we choose to see, the things that maybe we’ve seen so much of that we subconsciously filter it out. Why was it important for you to put these two things up against each other in this way?
SG: Because the Vertigo is something everybody who lives here recognizes as central to a sort of framework of Los Angeles. And I think the encampment has become that as well. It’s connecting these integral components — something that’s more revelatory and more fun with something that’s more grave. That’s what I’m doing in my work at large. I use the sunsets and the beauty to create a dialogue, to entice people to sort of look a little bit at how things are contextualized, how things act, what’s actually happening. I don’t make things in a vacuum. I was working on this show and I was going to really push this agenda of incorporating more of my experience with my kids into the work. That’s also a double-edged sword. I wanted to interject some levity, because the work can get so dark. I wanted to bring in some iconography from their world and things that they get excited about. When you’re juxtaposing that with really stark things, it becomes darker. I want to thicken the stock a little bit. Make things a little more complex.
Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame works the 2019 NHL Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on June 19, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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