{"id":152625,"date":"2018-02-13T02:18:27","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T07:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=152625"},"modified":"2018-02-13T02:18:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T07:18:27","slug":"marvel-studios-brings-black-panther-to-ny-fashion-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/13\/marvel-studios-brings-black-panther-to-ny-fashion-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel Studios brings ‘Black Panther’ to NY Fashion Week"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marvel<\/a>
Marvel Studios sponsored a small Black Panther-inspired presentation, \u201cWelcome to Wakanda,\u201d on Monday featuring designs by LaQuan Smith, Chromat, Wale Oyejide of the brand Ikire Jones, Fear of God and others, including the jewelry of Douriean Fletcher in a capsule collection. (Photo<\/a>: Black Panther\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 Afrofuturism is now at New York Fashion Week.<\/p>\n

Marvel Studios sponsored a small Black Panther-inspired presentation, \u201cWelcome to Wakanda,\u201d on Monday featuring designs by LaQuan Smith, Chromat, Wale Oyejide of the brand Ikire Jones, Fear of God and others, including the jewelry of Douriean Fletcher in a capsule collection.<\/p>\n

Fletcher, based in Los Angeles, said she was hired by the film’s costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, to create some statement pieces for the superhero blockbuster after she met Carter through a mutual friend, actress CCH Pounder.<\/p>\n

\u201cCCH Pounder had a jewelry party for me and invited Ruth. She saw my work and she liked it,\u201d Fletcher said.<\/p>\n

After doing a few pieces for the \u201cRoots\u201d reboot, which Carter worked on, Fletcher told her she dreamed of creating \u201cthese really big ornate dresses and all these wearable art pieces, and Ruth said, ‘Hey, I have this opportunity. If I get it, I want you to come with me,’ and that’s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among Fletcher’s work in the highly anticipated film that opens Friday is a bold amethyst and 18-karat gold plate piece at the top of a costume worn by Angela Bassett’s Queen Ramonda. It’s featured in one of the movie’s posters. Fletcher also hand pounded gold-plate armour pieces for the female warriors of the Dora Milaje.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all took a lot of work in a very short period of time. It was mostly me pounding but I did have some help,\u201d Fletcher said of that work. \u201cThat was a lot of me understanding that a soldier, they take pride in their uniform. These are resilient, powerful, strong women who are protecting their country. I love the fact that I was part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

To say there’s buzz about the Ryan Coogler-directed film based on the character from the comic series is an understatement. Mania is more like it. Excited fans have said they plan to show up at theatres in African garb.<\/p>\n

Smith has seen the movie and created a trench coat with a matching jumpsuit \u2014 both pieces covered entirely by black sequins \u2014 for the inspired-by collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted it to resonate with the idea of female empowerment, women that are strong,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to do something that was sexy and powerful and aggressive because there’s a lot of technology in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oyejide did a men’s suit with a coat and scarf. One of his scarves made it into the movie, which he said shows off the nuances of people of colour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe film is very much about the joy of seeing cultures represented in roles that they are generally not seen in,\u201d he said. There’s villainy and heroes, tech genius and romance. People of colour are generally presented as a monolithic image. I’m hoping it smashes the door open to show that people can occupy all these spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cushnie et Ochs, Sophie Theallet and TOME were the other brands invited to participate. Like Fletcher, footwear designer Aurora James was asked to produce a small capsule collection.<\/p>\n

And like Oyejide, James \u2014 founder of Brother Vellies \u2014 wanted her pieces to honour the film but also beg broader questions about race and inclusion.<\/p>\n

She routinely sources materials in Africa and uses artisans there. One of her \u201cBlack Panther\u201d pieces is a pair of boots adorned with sisal from Haiti, with the sisal curled on one boot and brushed flat on the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe narrative question here is, ‘Do you like my hair now?’ I know for women of colour there’s so much around that,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

Chromat designer Tolu Aremu has seen the movie once already but plans to go again in a Nigerian dress to celebrate her history.<\/p>\n

She worked on the orange pattern design with Chromat founder Becca McCharen-Tran. Their dress is made of ankara fabric from Lagos, courtesy of Aremu’s second cousin there. They added a neoprene top to the dress to honour the technological achievements of the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought of my mother,\u201d Aremu said. \u201cGrowing up she’s always worn African garb and I wanted to make this an ode to my mom, being the superhero in my life. Afrocentric fashion is definitely having a fashion moment right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Afrofuturism is now at New York Fashion Week. Marvel Studios sponsored a small Black Panther-inspired presentation, \u201cWelcome …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":152627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,36,106,3],"tags":[19765,46521,15031],"class_list":["post-152625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-fashion-and-beauty","category-hollywood","category-lifestyle","tag-black-panther","tag-marvel-studios","tag-ny-fashion-week","mauthors-leanne-italie","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}