NEW YORK – Designer Kimberly Goldson showed her signature bold looks in a streaming fashion show. Goldson grew up in Brooklyn and always loved fashion, but she never saw a path to get her to this day – showing as part of Harlem’s Fashion Row showcase during New York Fashion Week.
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- Brooklyn Fashion Designer Kimberly Goldson always had a passion for fashion, but without seeing any designer of color, she had no idea that it could be a career.
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- After attending FIT and competing on the TV show Project Runway in Season 9, she founded her namesake brand but felt she was often seen simply as a Black designer whose clothes would only appeal to Black women.
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- As the Fashion Industry has a reckoning with a lack of diversity at every level, many are rolling out new initiatives to address the diversity issues.
- Ngozi Okaro has been working on these diversity issues for years with her organization, Custom Collaborative,” which works with brands to increase diversity and pay equity and advocates for paid internships to ensure low-income fashion students can take advantage of the opportunity.
“I “used to cut up clothes with my friends and distress them and things like that. I dididn’tee any designers of color at the time, so I dididn’tnow that it was possible for me even to be a fashion designer,” he said.
Still, she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and, in 2011, competed in season 9 of Project Runway, where she impressed the judges. From there, she founded her namesake line with her sister Shelly.
But despite enthusiasm for their designs, they face challenges convincing the industry that just because she is a Black designer, she dodoesn’tean her clothes cacan’te enjoyed by all kinds of women. “T “e challenge has been that we have the talent but that we dodon’tave the opportunities. It dididn’tust has to be that just black women and Black consumers want to wear bold; plenty of other women from other races and nationalities and walks of life want to be bold and feel empowered,” aid Goldson.
Nudged by the Black Lives Matter protests, the fashion industry is embracing programs that encourage inclusion. Ngozi Okaro has been tackling these problems for years with her organization,’ custom Collaborative,” which works with brands to increase diversity and helps get women of color and low-income women into jobs in fashion. She says unpaid internships can shut young people from less privileged backgrounds from gaining a foothold in the industry. She says change must be systemic, providing more access to every kind of job, from models to designers to production managers.
“people that make the clothing that produce the clothing are mostly Black and Brown people, and so, we need to value their contributions, which means paying people fairly and giving them opportunities. Black models, Asian models, and Latinx models do have as many opportunities. Designers do not have as much opportunity,” said Okaro. Media attention is also crucial. Goldson and her sister will be featured this mmonth’sCosmopolitan and hope to inspire others with their story. To see GGoldson’sfashion line, you can visit her website.
