RADAR 10 - Fashion
Publication Date: April 14, 2004
Joyce Scott on Baltimore Fashion

What we call "fashion" in this city has many different layers to it–'cause you've got street fashion, which has to do with how much money you make and who you're hanging with. One of the great things about street fashion is that hip hop has made a uniform for fashion, a hip hop uniform, the other thing that it's done has encouraged younger people to not only make the fashion but to sell it. And they've made it possible for young kids to open up small businesses and make their own urban clothing. And have their own tags, their own names…. I've talked to young kids and when they talk about having a business, they're not just talking about selling clothing, they're talking about designing their own clothing. That's pretty amazing.

You've got the whole art school or [fashion] school level, we were talking earlier about whether your design emphasis is a culture-bound emphasis or whether it comes out of academia[. If] you go to [fashion] school you learn how to draft patterns, and you learn what Sun Ra said was good, and you're mixing that with your stuff, or [if] you went to an art school, and you learned negative and positive space, and you learned what da Vinci said was good, de Kooning, and you try to put those in garments–they're different ways of looking, and the garments reflect that too. And also the way you stage the garments reflects it, because art school people are going to make a big arty event, usually, in contrast to others who are thinking about runway work. People in fashion school learn about the construction of fashion, the construction of garments, the architecture of the body, they learn about famous "fashion people." They may never make the fabric, the people in art school may actually make the fabric. It's very different, the context. The phat part is the blend, the overlap. School is an egalitarian thing. [You have] scholarship kids who are really interesting and who do great work, who aren't wealthy and their backgrounds aren't wealth, they bring a whole urban, or middle- or poor-class tip to what they're doing with their artwork and that shows in the garments as well. [Clubs] are good because they allow people to blend in a way that [they] don't always do on the street.

It's all around Baltimore and you've got to remember that the hip hop generation, the beginning of it, certainly, was African American urban youth, but there is an ethos about it, as long as you were hip–that's it. So there are a lot of white kids and Asian kids–Hispanic kids were in the beginning of it too–who have co-opted a way of dressing, to the chagrin of their parents. It's everywhere, it's absolutely everywhere, and kids of different ethnic groups, unless they are very separate, are working together to make things happen. Some of this hip hop clothing I believe is telling people "you have to come over to my side of the [street]." But they see the power they have. Who do [white kids] see as the ones who have power, who are the hippest, who the people are loving, people in their youth who are getting money and fame and some cachet in society? And they see young artists, they see Nelly! And not only are they dressed a certain way, they're having fun!

[In the 60s] people started writing on clothing…it was the beginning of that kind of voice, for kids as well as adults. You would put your boyfriend's name all over your books, and you might also write something on your jacket…we were precursors for that kind of freedom. I don't really care about the brand names… I think for young African Americans the name FUBU means something. Because these were young African American men who went to college, and studied finance as well as fashion. And they put together this hip hop company and they are skillionaires and they are still in their 20s. But when kids see FUBU, not only is it taking what Nike does but puts an Afro spin on it, they see they can own their own company. Think about fashion being an impetus for something else, too. It's not only a reason to dress, but it's a reason for people to blend together and figure out–to blur lines. A woman was at my opening, a white lady, and she had on a kinte cloth scarf. Done as if, "Donna Karan tied that scarf." But it was from Ghana. So [I see] a way for people to insinuate somebody else's thing into their everyday garment, which I think is cool.

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Asians and African Americans work really well in this contract we've made with each other about hair, nails, and garments. And the garment thing has overlapped to India and Pakistan. So when you go to malls that have lots of Black carriage trade, you'll find one or two wig shops, hair, Korean and Chinese. That's what they're selling. Also nail stuff and any other thing that comes along with that hair trade. And they can do some very outlandish things and we can't get enough of [it]. And they employ African American males and females as wig stylists. … If I were Asian and had a quirky personality and ideas about design, I think that being in a nail shop in Baltimore would be great, because the sisters want rhinestones, their names, diamonds, [the Howard Street] bridge three dimensionally done on their nails, and the fingers to wrap, and they want the underside of the nail painted! I'm serious! And so if I were wild like that, that would be the best place for me to work. And they [have] relationships, I don't know if they go out and drink together, but I do know that when you get your favorite hair person or nail person, that's who you keep going back to. So they know each other–now what's the spin on that? Their kids are probably going to school together.

Baltimore used to be hair-land–it still is hair-land, I just don't know if they still do the big hair shows like they used to do–and you could go anywhere and get your hair processed. What's also happened is with the influx of extensions and African braiding, that a lot more Africans coming in, so African Americans are actually having their hair done by Africans, and a lot of people are doing a lot of hair in their own homes. Now they're doing architectural hair design [in their own homes]. Just like it is now, you see hair places all around Baltimore–always hair, that was the same, there would always be a hair place somewhere, a couple of them in people's neighborhoods, and a barbershop. Because black people are very sartorial. And I know that's a stereotype and a broad statement and I think it's absolutely true. I think any oppressed people that didn't have much will always look to have what others have, will always take the easiest route to feel as good as others. And looking good is one of those ways.

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The difference between the visual art and the performance art is [that] the visual work means I must leave some power to the viewer. They have to decide about what I'm saying–[whereas] as a performer you tell them exactly what you want them to know. And they know nuance because they see you being it, doing it. But I can do a visual thing–clothing is a very good example–and you miss all of it. I may have made the buttons myself and if you turn it this way and show the underflap there's something going on, and you can miss all of it. But as a performer I can show you as much as I want you to see. I think some of the most intriguing garments are about things that are not easy to get on, some of them, you have to make a real choice about wearing them because they are worn in a way that change the way you walk, that change the way you sit, they may some kind of rigorous underpinnings. And that to me is a real "art school" difference, because the you can look at some European [work] and you can't wear it [except] for that minute at that fabulous opening but you can't wear it. And the art school people may make form more important than function [but] someone who is going to school for the fashion industry has to make garments that someone can wear for a long period of time. I like doing things that bring out that hidden part of you. I think that if you're too fat and you're not comfortable with it, you're trying to cover it up or to squeeze into something, or if you're too short then maybe you're putting on high heel shoes or doing something else to make you tall, or if you're a guy who doesn't like himself then he's got on big shouldered things to beef him out, and…be it through color or construct or jewelry or elegant stuff or big stuff or–[even] ideas about politics can be put in my artwork.

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You have to do a lot to be unattractive. People don't understand that. Most of us have two eyes, a nose, and some lips and some ears, we all have the same things. So you really have to do a lot to cock yourself up. So that's the beauty.

Interviewed by Jack Livingston and David Crandall