Cross Colours
California African American Museum - Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century
Los Angeles, CA • opened 2019
Los Angeles, CA • opened 2019
Developed with Picnic Design
Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century explores how black fashion reflected the social position and perspective of African Americans in the United States—especially in the 1990s, when the groundbreaking brand Cross Colours achieved its early commercial success. Like so many African Americans before them, the brand’s co-founders felt the need to respond to intense social and political pressures that, in turn, influenced their approach to fashion. In particular, they sought to model black pride, community responsibility, and solidarity—causes rooted in Black Nationalist tendencies from earlier in the twentieth century, including Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement of the 1920s; the Nation of Islam and its charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X, in the 1950s and 1960s; and the non-violent ethos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
This exhibition also explores parallels between Cross Colours’s emphasis on public engagement and the Black Panther Party’s advocacy for community outreach in 1970s Oakland. It likewise considers how adverse Reagan-era policies in the 1970s and 1980s influenced the birth of Hip Hop culture, with its embrace of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism. These elements were central to Cross Colours, whose pioneering vision brought a black urban aesthetic to mainstream culture and jump-started what is now a billion-dollar clothing industry.
Red Cape Studio was hired to design the physical layout and structures for the exhibition.
Photographer: Elon Schoenholz
Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century explores how black fashion reflected the social position and perspective of African Americans in the United States—especially in the 1990s, when the groundbreaking brand Cross Colours achieved its early commercial success. Like so many African Americans before them, the brand’s co-founders felt the need to respond to intense social and political pressures that, in turn, influenced their approach to fashion. In particular, they sought to model black pride, community responsibility, and solidarity—causes rooted in Black Nationalist tendencies from earlier in the twentieth century, including Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement of the 1920s; the Nation of Islam and its charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X, in the 1950s and 1960s; and the non-violent ethos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
This exhibition also explores parallels between Cross Colours’s emphasis on public engagement and the Black Panther Party’s advocacy for community outreach in 1970s Oakland. It likewise considers how adverse Reagan-era policies in the 1970s and 1980s influenced the birth of Hip Hop culture, with its embrace of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism. These elements were central to Cross Colours, whose pioneering vision brought a black urban aesthetic to mainstream culture and jump-started what is now a billion-dollar clothing industry.
Red Cape Studio was hired to design the physical layout and structures for the exhibition.
Photographer: Elon Schoenholz
California African American Museum - Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century
Los Angeles, CA • opened 2019
Los Angeles, CA • opened 2019
Developed with Picnic Design
Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century explores how black fashion reflected the social position and perspective of African Americans in the United States—especially in the 1990s, when the groundbreaking brand Cross Colours achieved its early commercial success. Like so many African Americans before them, the brand’s co-founders felt the need to respond to intense social and political pressures that, in turn, influenced their approach to fashion. In particular, they sought to model black pride, community responsibility, and solidarity—causes rooted in Black Nationalist tendencies from earlier in the twentieth century, including Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement of the 1920s; the Nation of Islam and its charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X, in the 1950s and 1960s; and the non-violent ethos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
This exhibition also explores parallels between Cross Colours’s emphasis on public engagement and the Black Panther Party’s advocacy for community outreach in 1970s Oakland. It likewise considers how adverse Reagan-era policies in the 1970s and 1980s influenced the birth of Hip Hop culture, with its embrace of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism. These elements were central to Cross Colours, whose pioneering vision brought a black urban aesthetic to mainstream culture and jump-started what is now a billion-dollar clothing industry.
Red Cape Studio was hired to design the physical layout and structures for the exhibition.
Photographer: Elon Schoenholz
Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 20th Century explores how black fashion reflected the social position and perspective of African Americans in the United States—especially in the 1990s, when the groundbreaking brand Cross Colours achieved its early commercial success. Like so many African Americans before them, the brand’s co-founders felt the need to respond to intense social and political pressures that, in turn, influenced their approach to fashion. In particular, they sought to model black pride, community responsibility, and solidarity—causes rooted in Black Nationalist tendencies from earlier in the twentieth century, including Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement of the 1920s; the Nation of Islam and its charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X, in the 1950s and 1960s; and the non-violent ethos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
This exhibition also explores parallels between Cross Colours’s emphasis on public engagement and the Black Panther Party’s advocacy for community outreach in 1970s Oakland. It likewise considers how adverse Reagan-era policies in the 1970s and 1980s influenced the birth of Hip Hop culture, with its embrace of Pan-Africanism and Afrocentrism. These elements were central to Cross Colours, whose pioneering vision brought a black urban aesthetic to mainstream culture and jump-started what is now a billion-dollar clothing industry.
Red Cape Studio was hired to design the physical layout and structures for the exhibition.
Photographer: Elon Schoenholz
