Friday, July 08, 2011

Photo History: The Fashions Of Women Of Color : The Picture Show : NPR

Photo History: The Fashions Of Women Of Color : The Picture Show : NPR: In the past hundred years, trendy American women have worn everything from flapper dresses to bobby socks to bell-bottom jeans. But when we're talking about the history of fashion, Minh-Ha T. Pham, a visual arts and fashion scholar at Cornell University, says there's something — or someone — we often leave out: women of color.

Enter Pham's blog, "Of Another Fashion." There, Pham features old photographs of African-American, Native-American, Asian-American and Latin-American women — and the clothes they wore. Many of the pictures are submitted by readers and include stories about the women in them.
"In general, I'm trying to put together a collection of photos and stories that ... will illustrate the rich and complex texture of ... women of color — who have been both shaped by and shape American fashion in different ways," she says over email.