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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 4h

This self-portrait of Coreen Simpson appears opposite my essay in her new monograph. Like Seydou Keïta’s self-portrait (on view in A Tactile Lens at the Brooklyn Museum), she turns the camera inward, showing that to photograph is an act of self-love, a way of seeing oneself clearly and tenderly.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 1d

Seydou Keïta, famed for his Bamako portraits during Mali’s transition to independence, turns the lens on himself here. A flower to his lips and a crisp shirt against a rough wall reveal his gift for capturing dignity in contrast. See it in "Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens" at the Brooklyn Museum.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 4d

Coreen Simpson is an artist I know through lived experience more than study. Her jewelry filled my family’s Avon catalogs. Writing for her Aperture monograph reconnected me to her art. More recently, I noticed women wearing her Black Cameos. I bought one too, pictured below with my friend Monique.

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 5d

I had the joy of spending a few hours with the 83-year-old photographer and jewelry designer Coreen Simpson. Vivacious, hilarious, and brimming with stories. Some of them made their way into my essay "Pictures in my Mind" for the new Aperture volume celebrating her work. aperture.org/books/coreen...

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 7d

Beloved Indie Designer Gets a Big New Job at Hermès

www.nytimes.com

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 7d

A 1943 Spelman College graduate, Annie Jewel Moore, who is now 106 years old, became one of the first black women to study at ESMOD International in Paris and the New York Fashion Academy, before founding Ann Moore Couturiere in Detroit in 1951.

106-year-old Spelman alumna, fashion pioneer looks back at breaking boundaries and homecoming celebrations

Annie Jewel Moore, the oldest living Spelman alumna, launched her own haute couture salon and had her fashion featured in Vogue.

www.cbsnews.com

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 8d

My exhibition Almost Unknown includes a satellite display outside the Winterthur Library about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It explores Tom-Mania, the wave of material culture inspired by Stowe’s novel. Pictured is a topsy-turvy doll of Topsy and Eva, embodying the era’s racial dualism & sentimental fantasy.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 12d

As I told the @washingtonpost.com, costumes can powerfully shape protest. he inflatable costumes in Portland continue that legacy, using humor and absurdity to de-escalate tension, signal peaceful intent, and reclaim visibility through playful resistance. www.washingtonpost.com/style/fashio...

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 13d

This Hyacinthe Rigaud painting in "Superfine" captures the tension between beauty and bondage. His luminous skin, be-tasseled turban, and silver collar reveal how early modern art turned black presence into both spectacle and subject.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 15d

Isaac Cruikshank’s 1795 etching "Washing the Blackamoor" satirizes race, gender, and scandal in late Georgian Britain. Lady Jersey, the Prince of Wales’s mistress, is shown being scrubbed “white,” mocking her attempt to cleanse her reputation and exposing the moral hypocrisy of Britain’s elite.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 18d

Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Underpainting) reimagines the museum as both subject and metaphor. Using a Renaissance technique of burnt umber underpainting, Marshall creates a glowing, unfinished surface that echoes William J. Wilson’s "Afric-American Picture Gallery."

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 19d

Literary historian Jonathan D. S. Schroeder joins my symposium "Looking Back to the Future" at Winterthur this November. He rediscovered John Swanson Jacobs’s 1855 narrative and a portrait believed to depict him. winterthur.org/looking-back-to-the-future-realizing-the-afric-american-picture-gallery

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 21d

The son of an enslaved Haitian woman and a French nobleman and, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas became the 1st general of African descent in the French army. Although "Superfine" includes garments associated with his son Alexandre Dumas, this portrait by Louis Gauffier represents the elder Dumas’s legacy.

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 25d

What happens when an obscure 19th-century text by an African American author becomes an exhibition? See me, Alexandra Deutsch, and Kim Collison as we share how we brought this vision to life. Filmed by Robbie Isacson, this is just a glimpse of the full story. youtube.com/watch?v=5vg06kxaRh8

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 26d

This masterfully composed photograph is one of the important images of the twentieth century. Coretta Scott King’s mournful expression is foregrounded in Moneta Sleet Jr.’s photograph at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral. Mourning is conveyed through demeanor as much as dress.

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 27d

In this 1841 daguerreotype, Mary Jane Richardson Jones sits poised beside her husband John Jones. The slow exposure of the daguerreotype highlights the sheen of her glazed chintz gown, while a fitted bodice, crisp collar, and lace cuffs mark her refinement.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 28d

I’m excited to share that on October 18, 2025, 11am-12:30pm, I’ll be giving a talk at Maryland Center for History and Culture on he museum’s striking purple livery featured in Superfine. mdhistory.org/calendar/wye-oak-lecture-dandies-on-display-livery-luxury-and-the-enslaved-body

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · 29d

As the first black graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Henry Ossian Flipper faced prejudice and discrimination from his fellow cadets and superiors, condemning him to "four years of solitude and silence," as detailed in his 1878 memoir.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 24

Thrilled to announce that conceptual artist Fred Wilson will deliver the keynote at the symposium for my exhibition at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. In addition to Wilson’s keynote, the symposium will bring together an incredible group of panelist.

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 23

This James Van Der Zee photograph from 1932 epitomizes glamour and self-fashioning at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance. The couple’s luxurious beaver coats, polished Packard automobile, and poised demeanor project modern black affluence and sophistication.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 22

Thomas Pollock Anshutz’s 1880 painting "Aunt Hannah" presents an image of an African American woman seated in a modest domestic setting, her face obscured by a headscarf. Yet, the stillness of her body resists objectification, inviting viewers to consider her presence beyond the confines of labor.

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 18

Émile-Jean-Horace Vernet’s circa 1830 painting "Sketch of an Unknown French Soldier" focuses on the sitter’s uniform, with its high collar, epaulets, and contrasting panels that reflect the sharp tailoring of early nineteenth-century French military fashion.

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 17

Quoted for the first time in Vogue in an article on the evolution of air travel style from mid-century glamour to post-9/11 athleisure, shaped by security culture and surveillance. With the end of TSA’s shoe-removal rule, new possibilities may open for airport fashion.

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Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 16

Conceptual artist Fred Wilson will deliver the keynote at the symposium for my exhibition at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. winterthur.org/looking-back-to-the-future-realizing-the-afric-american-picture-gallery/

Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom @fashioningtheself.bsky.social · Sep 15

Horace Bonham’s "Nearing the Issue at the Cockpit" depicts a crowd of men absorbed in the spectacle of a cockfight. By placing black figures within this scene of popular entertainment, Bonham highlights the heterogeneity of working-class recreation.