Fashion
Jeremy Pope’s Met Gala Look Called Attention To America’s Troubled History With Cotton & Slavery
We damn near shed a tear for this one.
Monday’s Met Gala called on our faves to show off America-inspired fashions — and their looks pushed all sorts of boundaries for baring skin, weighing more than the celeb, and even being politically motivated. But once we learned its significance, one assumingly simple look damn near made us shed a tear.
[SEE ALSO: Get Into These Black Fashion Designers’ 2021 Met Gala Creations]
Actor Jeremy Pope pulled up in what appeared to be a basic all-white off-the-shoulder pants ensemble and cape train styled by Juliann McCandless. That is until he took to Instagram to share what he was really wearing: the uniform of slaves.
No, that was not a train — that was an oversized cotton broadcloth picking sack created by James Flemons. No, Pope did not simply wear all white. He wore all cotton suit designed by Dion Lee to honor the strength and fortitude of slaves who suffered through America’s harrowing connection between cotton and slavery from which we are still trying to recover. Even his boutonniere, designed by Denim Tears, was made of cotton.
To bring the point home, he shared a powerful image of Danny Lyon’s “The Cotton Pickers” image superimposed over his costume.
“They planted seeds of beauty, tended to fields with unspeakable strength, & harvested a kind of excellence that would outlive them for centuries,” wrote Pope.
Pope then turned his look into a theatrical moment with his interpretation of Met Gala’s “America: A Lexicon of Fashion” theme. America’s celebration of fashion, like its history, joy, and concept of freedom, is convoluted, controversial, and contradictory.
“Every year, the fashion oracles scream, “follow the assignment,” wrote Flemons on Instagram. “Cotton, the fabric of our lives, came forward. Cotton is entrenched in the pain of slavery and the commodity of Black bodies. What better platform than the beauty of a Black male body draped in cotton to bridge the narrative from pain to glory?”
They didn’t just follow that assignment. They aced it.
