‘Dressed in Dreams’ Uncovers the Black Women Who Invented Modern Streetwear

“The book is for all of the everyday Black girls who made magic out of a dollar store T-shirt.”

By Taylor Hosking via https://www.vice.com

There are a thousand ways to explain the importance of baggy jeans in Black culture. You could start with the hip-hop icons who helped popularize the streetwear trend in the media, and continue with the mainstream fashion industry who tried to capitalize off of the look. But for historian and journalist Tanisha C. Ford, the only way to start is with the legacy of Carl Jones, who saw Black kids wearing oversized hand-me-down jeans because they couldn’t afford their own sizes and chose to flip the stigma by giving the style a name and producing it in loud bright colors when he launched Cross Colours in 1989.

In her upcoming book, Dressed In Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion, Ford tells her own coming of age story from Fort Wayne, Indiana to life in New York City by tracing the history of ten fashion trends—like bamboo earrings, leather jackets, and Jheri curls— that each tell a broader story about Black women’s  …

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