Where To Support Black-Owned Menswear Labels
At a time when supporting black owned businesses is essential to empowering the black community, VMAN put together a list of where to shop to do so.
As more people stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s important to know the multiplicity of ways to do so—supporting black-owned businesses is just one. According to The Washington Post, “The number of working African American business owners in the United States plummeted more than 40 percent as the coronavirus shut down much of the economy — a far steeper drop than other racial groups experienced, according to an analysis confirming fears the pandemic would deepen inequalities in the business world.”
To ease that inequality, VMAN compiled a list of 10 black-owned menswear labels and jewelry brands, from Pyer Moss (pictured above) to Darryl Brown, who used to style Kanye West.
London based Samuel Ross created A-COLD-WALL* in 2015, with garments seeing strict tailoring and graphic designs ready for street wear.
From the Darryl Brown website, the label started with “designer Darryl Brown’s path from steel worker to railroad engineer/conductor to General Motors employee and eventually to the fashion industry. Former stylist of Kanye West, the designer’s first collection reflects on his time in the labor union and the odyssey of his career.”
Of the designer Heron Preston, his label’s website reads: “As a designer, DJ, consultant, art director, and collaborator, his work is deeply inspired by sustainability and technology. As a result, his work inherently speaks to the next wave of culture, innovation, environmental responsibility and human impact. On and off the runway, Preston’s mission to identify and integrate less environmentally destructive practices permeate throughout all of his work.”
Award winning designer Kerby Jean Raymond founded Pyer Moss in 2013, and his most recent collection with the label is a homage to none other than the god mother of rock ‘n roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
“It’s not for you — it’s for everyone,” reads the website of Liberian-American Telfar Clemens’ label Telfar.
UNION’s genesis was in SoHo, New York in 1989, where “it was the store that represented the fashion side of New York City’s youth and counter culture,” reads the brand’s website. “Maintaining the same principles as the New York shop, Union LA embraced the creativity of fresh designers within the city and continued the hunt for cool shit coming out of countries like Japan and the UK.”
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