Kimberly M. Jenkins has spent over ten years studying the impact of our clothes and how we express ourselves through the lenses of politics, race, psychology, and anthropology, helping us think more deeply about dress.
Based in New York with a background in fashion studies, cultural anthropology, and art history, Kimberly is the Founder and Director of Artis Solomon, which offers a consultancy on fashion history and cultural awareness, and powers The Fashion and Race Database, a one of a kind learning platform. Most recently, she co-produced and hosted the podcast, "The Invisible Seam," in partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, highlighting the underrepresented contributions of Black culture to fashion.
"I decided to pitch a course, a syllabus called ‘Fashion and Race’ at Parsons School of Design. They offered frameworks for thinking through and about fashion, but it also left enough room for play with ideas, challenge things, and add to the conversation or discourse about fashion.
To be honest with you, at first, when I was speaking with one of my professors, she thought I should change the name. Maybe ‘Fashion and Race’ is a little too direct, a little too harsh. She wasn't sure if a course like that will be accepted. But I wrote the syllabus anyway and kept the name because I wanted it to be very clear so that students can identify it and what you see is what you get.
It was 2015 and the class ‘Fashion and Race’ was not accepted, but then the following year, in 2016, it was. That was coming off the back of some fresh protests that were happening in the United States, where young black men were getting shot by the police at an alarming rate.
So suddenly there was this kind of shift and I'm fairly certain they thought, this is a class that's needed now. The course went live, which showed just how needed it was for students.”
- Kimberly Jenkins
Kimberly formerly held the position of Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University and lecturer at Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute. Kim is best known for introducing the course, Fashion and Race, at Parsons, and for working as an education consultant for Gucci in Europe and Asia to support their efforts on design and cultural awareness.
"We are in the midst of a great deal of change right now on various levels in society with environment, labor, gender. So much is all happening all at once - all of these pushes for change, liberation, freedom and walking away from old institutions, old ways of thinking, old ways of doing things. However, many resist help, support, education, or change.
Because then they have to take that look in the mirror and see where they've enabled things, where they've been complicit with things, and they've upheld some of these very problems that have held others down. It may even necessitate them losing their job or things being found out about them. So it's really better that you keep the educators and change makers away.
You don't want to change, to evolve, or maybe you're going to have to learn something new, unlearn something, and change the way that you are doing things. And people are very resistant to that. That's a lot of work. And it can involve some shame. And so you don't want to bring in that change.”
- Kimberly Jenkins
Host: Beata Wilczek
Guest: Kimberly Jenkins
Music: SKY H1
Production: Julia Kąkolewska
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Fashion, Race & Platforms with Kimberly Jenkins - E20