Our Remix Culture
by Dominique Drakeford
Black Americans Created a Spicy Sub-Culture of Sustainable Style Through Survival & Expression…
Since I’ve been in the sustainable fashion space, one of my most overused phrases is that BlPOC communities are inherently sustainable and that Black people across the diaspora have created regenerative and sustainable principles and practices. But often, this philosophy points solely to our African and Afro-Indigenous ancestry. Bogolan cloth from Mali, Ancient Egyptians cultivating flax woven into linen, raffia in the Democratic Republic of Congo or tree bark used to make clothing in Cameroon—these are foundational footprints of sustainable fashion.
Despite how much of a beautiful melting pot the diaspora is, I’ve noticed that mainstream context specifically omits the Black American contributions to sustainable fashion theory. Cultural sustainability has two primary functions of currency: 1) Ancestry before colonial discovery and takeover and 2) resourcefulness as a form of creative political expression and resistance to colonial systems and anti-Black and racist agendas.
When we look at sustainability in America—the importation of Black Africans as the only cultural community of people to be enslaved on American soil—it is imperative to understand that our specific iteration of sustainability is completely unique. Because the genesis of exploitation was the crocheting of Black bodies into European systems, Black Americans took the relics of their ancestry and created a subculture of sustainable style as a form of communication, connection, resistance and agency. Yet we rarely see or hear of the mosaic of Blackness, street style, revolutionary activism, and hip-hop culture being part of the sustainable fashion diorama.
LET ME TAKE Y’ALL ON A JOURNEY.
