“Black Lives Matter,” the political movement sparked by the deaths of black Americans at the hands of white police, has landed on the Fashion Week runway.
The collection of designer Kerby Jean-Raymond for the Pyer Moss label launched on Thursday night with gripping and now familiar videos of police violence. The choking death of Eric Garner. The teenage girl thrown to the ground outside a Texas pool party. The running down of a suspect as lights flashed. The smashing of a car window, and then cries.
Until the day before the show, Jean-Raymond said, he was not so sure he would even include the clothes.
Photo: AFP
“I was making a collection. I didn’t know I was actually gonna show it,” he said. “I was gonna kind of like hold up a mirror to the room with a video.”
He even invited some family members of victims of police brutality to sit in his show’s front row, a coveted position.
Some fashion and front-row regulars were upset and said they would not attend, Jean-Raymond said.
The 28-year-old designer called it disheartening.
“I’m black; I’m a designer; I’m living in a time when this is happening,” he said.
“You’re 28 years old; you’re watching kids younger than you who are being killed by grown men who claim fear as an excuse,” he added.
He said his show was about defying stereotypes — “the thug, the entertainer” — and redefining the black narrative in the US.
During the show’s opening video, which combined the images of confrontation with a range of interviews with singer Usher and others on the need for change, people in the audience gasped or murmured. In an added touch, artist Gregory Siff moved among the models on the runway, quickly tagging the mostly stark, sportish clothes.
On the back of one robe, Siff scrawled “Breathe Breathe Breathe,” a likely reference to Garner’s repeated plea: “I can’t breathe.”
Even some models did not know what they had signed up for until they heard the video begin backstage.
“I was so blown away by it; it was unreal,” British model Abby Clee said. “I knew I was definitely moved. I was a bit teary, but thought: ‘No, I shouldn’t cry when I’m about to go out.’ I think a lot of people were quite moved, by their faces. Obviously, it means quite a lot to them.”
Klee said she was honored to be in the show.
“I thought the message that they’re sending was absolutely amazing,” she said.
The designer’s father, Jean-Claude Jean-Raymond, got a hug from his son as soon as the show finished. He said the show’s theme had been a surprise even for him.
“It was really, really nice,” he said.
Additional reporting by Nicole Evatt
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group