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Easter Sunday Is Peak Black Church Fashion: An Appreciation
From infants to elders, congregants make the pews their runway
There is an oft circulated black-and-white image that represents an array of Black diasporic tendencies, such as cool and style. In a photograph taken by Russell Lee in 1941 for the Farm Security Administration titled “Negro boys on Easter morning,” five young Black boys lean, sit, or stand on the front of a car and are styled impeccably. They all wear suits, but each take on a different pose that makes you not want to look away. One on the left has foregone his tie, instead, leaving his top buttons unfastened, his collar splaying over his coat’s lapels; another wears knickerbockers, the hems rising to reveal his printed socks; and the one in the middle, the tallest of the bunch, dons mixed prints, wearing a striped tie and a checkered shirt. They are dressed in what can no less be summarized as their Sunday best — a colloquialism not solely practiced by Black people, but one that has come to be defined by the exquisite style of a group of people who quite certainly do it the best.
Sunday church service is one of the most coveted days in the Black community. Not only has it become a place of fellowship, organizing, and more, it is also a place where the sartorial ensembles easily rival collections at fashion week. From infants to elders, congregants make the pews their runway, as they tottle extravagant hats and deliver a master class in coordination, from three-piece suits to matching colors and prints. The late Black fashion designer Patrick Kelly, who became the first American to be accepted into the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter (the governing body of the prestigious French ready-to-wear industry), said, according to his partner, Bjorn Amelan: “In one pew at Sunday church in Vicksburg, there’s more fashion to be seen than on a Paris runway.”
Similarly, the late Black fashion designer Willi Smith, whose first retrospective opened last month at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, once said, “Most of these designers who have to run to Paris for color and fabric combinations should go to church on Sunday in Harlem. It’s all right there.” And indeed it is. Although every Sunday serves as an opportunity to show up in the best, Easter Sunday is perhaps one of the main events in…
