This is unlike the hundreds of other “100 years of...” videos you’ve seen before.
Buzzfeed Yellow released “100 Years Of Black American Fashion” on Monday, marking the close of Black History Month. The video features some of our most beloved and popular trends, showing how black fashion evolved since the 1920s with iconic styles inspired by jazz, Motown and hip-hop.
It also provides a look back through black history in this country using the lens of fashion.
Consider the 1940s, when black soldiers were “often given more labor-intensive service roles based on the belief that they were unfit to serve as officers,” the video says, or the late 1950s-60s, when civil rights activists were given more “credence” for dressing in their “Sunday best.”
Today, the Black Lives Matter movement is deeply steeped in fashion, including political statements printed on clothing andr hoodies worn in honor of Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed five years ago this week.
The fashion is something to admire, but the history matters most.