CAAM Los Angeles, CA • opened 2017 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. Photographer: Elon Schoenholz
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