BLACK DANDIES

A project collaboration at National Gallery, September 2021. Part of Art History Festival 2021. A collaboration between Originary Arts, with fashion designer ELLYBECKFORD, with accessories and headwear by Erika Janavi and model Angel Ito.

An investigation into four Black Dandies throughout history via sartorial styling on a model, alongside visual storytelling and music, reimagined through a 2021 gaze. To inspire fashion illustration and life drawing within Art History Festival 2021.

Find out a bit more behind the inspiration for this theatrical life drawing event and more of the characters and stories behind the fashion. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE GLADYS BENTLEY, W.E.B DU BOIS, CHEVALIER DE SAINT-GEORGES & Iké Udé

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ELLYBECKFORD

ELLYBECKFORD is a London based unisex brand, built on a foundation of statement suiting infused with period costume and historic references. ELLYBECKFORD’s focus on suiting is an investigation to the concept of suit survival: Dressing up to appear approachable but non-subservient by Black people during the Victorian era and beyond, and additionally to her love of period dramas, which she grew up watching but never saw herself represented in.

Elly is dedicated to researching Black Dandies and Sartorial Dandyism, designing garments which splice together different periods and create new stories through a modern lens.

www.ellybeckford.com 

ellybeckford@gmail.com

@elly_beckford

 

CHEVALIER DE

SAINT-GEORGES, 1745-1799

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges was a French classical composer, virtuoso violinist and champion fencer. Born before Beau Brummel he is one of the original Dandies.


ELLYBECKFORD’s designs (right) as modelled by Angel Ito at National Gallery playfully nod to this iconic figure, whilst a soundtrack of music composed by him plays as the participants sketch.

Further information to find out more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/arts/music/black-mozart-joseph-boulogne.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqdmuSC1OLw

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GLADYS BENTLEY 1907-1960

“It seems I was born different. At the age of 9, I stole my brothers’ suits and began to feel more comfortable in boys clothes than in dresses.”

Gladys Bentley

Gladys Bentley was a queer blues pianist, singer, performer, and drag king pioneer. Challenging representations of gender, identity and sexuality on stage and throughout her career/existence.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/great-blues-singer-gladys-bentley-broke-rules-180971708/

https://nmaahc.si.edu/LGBTQ/gladys-bentley 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LeDbXK7H20


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W.E.B DU BOIS, 1

868-1963

W.E.B Du Bois was was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

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Iké Udé,1964 - PRESENT

Iké Udé is a Nigerian-American photographer, performance artist, author and publisher. He is best known for his conceptual photographic portraits that explore issues of representation and sexual, gender, cultural, and stylistic identity. FIND OUT MORE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ik%C3%A9_Ud%C3%A9 

https://ikeude.com/category/portfolio/ 

EKOW ESHUN ON DANDYISM:

Ekow Eshun wrote for The Guardian, The Subversive Power of the Black Dandy, July 2016

“Dandyism is also about using dress to flout conventional notions of class, taste, gender and sexuality…

the subversive power of dandyism to reveal masculinity itself as a performance, as something provisional, open to reinterpretation, rather than a set of inherited characteristics fixed in the skin. And they also highlight how, for black men, style is a form of radical personal politics.”

“They seem less concerned with what they wear than how they wear it. Their style is by turns flamboyant, provocative, arresting, camp, playful and assertive. It is about confounding expectations about how black men should look or carry themselves in order to establish a place of personal freedom: a place beyond the white gaze, where the black body is a site of liberation rather than oppression.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/04/the-subversive-power-of-the-black-dandy

Designs by ELLYBECKFORD (c)

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HATS AND HEADWEAR are an important part of Dandy Fashion and sartorial styling. To reflect the queer and gender play of contemporary and traditional Black Dandies, this collaborative project also featured the headwear of designer Erika Janavi.

Dandy:
A person who places extreme importance upon his physical appearance, especially style, language usage, fashion, and neatness. Originated in England in which, self-made, newly wealthy men imitated aristocrats in appearance and behaviour. 

Definition by Museum of African Diaspora

The term dandy originated in Victorian era Europe, so the term often evokes white men wearing top hats, ruffled blouses and petticoats. As it is often considered a colonial term, with roots in exploitation and oppression, sometimes the terms ‘la sape’ and ‘sapeurs’ are adopted by some contemporary fashion followers in Congo as a new identity.

https://theculturetrip.com/africa/congo/articles/the-art-of-la-sape-fashion-tips-from-congos-sapeurs/