Basic Black By Robin Givhan Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 1, 1999; Page C01

Sammy Davis Jr.'s clothes were flashy and exuberant, but never out of style. (MPTVC)

Boston is wearing a French cuffed shirt and a shimmering metallic tie with a generously proportioned knot. It's clear he has given thought to this choice of knot and to his spread collar because they form just the right balance to his lean neck.

The author does not have an imposing physique; in fact, he is rather slight. But on this young black man, a power-broker suit has the effect of a visual speed bump. It forces the eye to pause and to look the wearer up and down, not once but twice, to determine why this fellow is dressed so decorously.

This man of the hip-hop generation walks the cool stroll of youth in his reserved attire. And somehow, the clothes do not speak of white-shoe lawyers, blue-blood stockbrokers and members of The Club. Instead, Boston is an evocative riff on entitlement, dignity, masculinity and soulfulness. This is a well-dressed black man.

A great unspoken truth is that black men have developed a particularly dynamic sense of style, one that speaks eloquently about who they are and who they aspire to be. However one might define the attire of black men, the common link is their fearless approach to clothes. They are not intimidated by color, put off by textures or cowed by flamboyance. Style is a tool in their fight against invisibility. A black man's discerning wardrobe functions as bayonet, shield, compass and even ammunition.

"It is a survival skill called style," writes Boston in "Men of Color: Fashion, History, Fundamentals."

If their suits are more studiously tailored, their shoes more dutifully shined and their shirts more gloriously hued, then perhaps it is because for black men, the ability to exert control over one's own image – to shape it, polish it and find satisfaction in it – is more valued and dear.

Why and how that skill developed is the point of Boston's coffee-table tome. He quietly examines the style of black men within the context of white male culture. "Men of Color" is a rare book in that it takes an admiring and serious look at the contributions that black men have made to the menswear aesthetic. Not only does Boston tout their popularizing the zoot suit, for instance, he also writes with pride about how an older generation of men maintained their sense of dignity and humanity through the simple act of knotting a threadbare tie or polishing a pair of thin-soled oxfords.

This is a book that pays homage to the African crowns of Thelonious Monk, the baggy dungarees of the enterprising MC, to Gregory Hines and his Yohji Yamamoto suits, and to the anonymous black men who are always fastidious about their appearance.

Boston scoured history to understand why style came to play such an important – even provocative – role in a black man's life. And when he gazed into the mirror, he asked himself what it was about his blackness that transformed the tilting of a Borsalino brim or the trim fit of a polo shirt into an evocative statement of defiance.

"I realized that we are in all facets of society. We're not just at Howard, but also at Harvard," says Boston, a graduate of Morehouse University. "Some black men have embraced Ivy League chic. But it's going to take on a different spin. It's just the manner of our bodies, how we move and how we're shaped that gives it a particular spin. There's something in the way we place it on that gives it a unique sensibility."

In part, preppy style is striking because it presupposes that a black man is wearing a look previously reserved for white men; it is the juxtaposition of perceived extremes – Ivy League elitism with the black "other."

To be sure, not every black man takes special care with the fit of his suit or the symmetry of his four-in-hand. There are those who shun suits, rarely wearing anything other than a pair of oversize jeans and a T-shirt. But even in their most casual, nonchalant moments, black men, Boston argues, are more sensitive to the details of style than are other gentlemen. Certainly the anecdotal evidence of their creating or appropriating certain style markers is abundant: the backward-turned brim of a baseball cap, the dungarees hung just low enough to reveal the waistband on a pair of designer briefs, the single hiked-up leg of a pair of sweat pants. The attire may seem haphazardly thrown together. But that is an illusion. The ensemble has been painstakingly assembled, with each decision afforded great weight.

'More Than Just Looking Our Best'

Boston was inspired to write "Men of Color," he says, because "I got frustrated flipping through the pages of mainstream men's magazines to only find information geared to men of color between the lines, if at all." He was irritated that the industry seemed to ignore the huge audience of black men who cared about style and who had, either directly or indirectly, helped to drive the evolution of menswear.

And so Boston, vice president of art direction for Tommy Hilfiger, decided to draft a book exploring some observations that are easy to state but virtually impossible to prove.

"The challenge in the book is that there's no empirical evidence to say black men dress well," Boston says. "Some of it is innate. . . . It's something our community has validated. It's recreation for us. It's more than just looking our best."

Perhaps that is what most distinguishes black men: their ability to applaud each other for their natty dress. They can cast each other an admiring glance. They could admire Michael Jordan's dapper fashion sense as much as his balletic hoop style.

A black man of stature establishes a style not purely out of vainglory but because it is expected. Vernon Jordan, Colin Powell, Spike Lee, Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Willie Brown, Puffy Combs, Ed Bradley, Marion Barry, Anthony Williams – each has found a style that distinguishes and sears his image in the mind. In the introduction to "Men of Color," the veteran fashion editor Andre Leon Talley asks: "What motivates a well-dressed man of color? Is he not engaging in a performance of sorts, a play for respectability? The man of color uses his style to individuate himself, to identify himself. His appearance expresses his social status, professional power, personal achievement, sex appeal."

As Boston settled into his research, it became clear to him that changes in style could serve as signposts indicating how far along the road to independence and equality black men have traveled. Apparel symbolized the transforming nature of black manhood. The clothes tell stories: the suit as a tool for assimilation, Afrocentric garb as a means of protest as well as emblem of pride, the suit as a display of hard-won power.

"We choose to adorn ourselves because we have been marginalized," Boston says. "When you can't make a statement verbally, style is a way to be noticed."

For many men, wearing a suit is an offensive move. It allows the first impression they make to be one of sobriety and formality. For a man of color, the traditional suit "allows you to get the second thing out of your mouth," Boston says. "It's critical that he pay the most attention to his clothing. It says so much about what you believe."

Boston quotes Booker T. Washington: "No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man's clothes."

But the worshipful attitude toward the suit – with its connotations of assimilation and aspiration – is fading. Young black men still seek to control their image, but now the position is "not so much 'Please accept me,' but more 'I don't care if you accept me. I'm going to be an entrepreneur and you'll have to accept me because of what I produce,' " Boston says.

And so today's young black entrepreneurs – along with a host of other youthful businessmen – often do not concern themselves with three-button jackets, peak lapels and the length of their drop. The suit is not sword, shield or scepter but rather a sign of capitulation.

The Dignity of Elegance

Much of what I know about how black men feel about their clothes has been learned by listening to and watching my father. No one will ever see him in a pair of shoes that don't gleam with a shine buffed in with his own hands. In years past, when he would don his black chesterfield and kid gloves, he'd top these Sunday bests with a Dobbs fedora with grosgrain band, and right then I understood what it meant for a man to be elegant. Dignity most certainly comes from within, but a distinguished Dobbs can be a powerful symbol.

Harvard professor Cornel West writes in "Men of Color": "Black male elegance is an essential element of our complex humanity. . . . In a society so deeply shaped by White supremacy that it regards Black bodies with disgust and degradation, Black style acts as a type of aesthetic resistance to the various racist myths."

Today, my father has a fondness for sophisticated ties, appreciates the fine hand of a well-cut suit and does not look kindly upon inept dry cleaners who carelessly press wrinkles into the collar points of his dress shirts. He calls these egregious lines "cat's paws" and says their presence can destroy a shirt. Ruin the quality. Make a man look unkempt. And who can trust a slovenly man? If a man can't be bothered to take care with his appearance, well, that says something about the gentleman's focus, his concentration and his attention to detail.

For my father, a clear line of demarcation exists between a man in his private moments, when he can wear whatever he chooses however he sees fit, and the public man. The public should always see a sharply dressed fellow. There's no need to be boastful or to indulge in expensive clothes, and self-absorption is a downright sin, but a man with respect for himself should always strive to look his best.

"You have to take care of yourself, of your clothes, of your image. That's all we have," says Romello Duplax of Silver Spring while browsing the aisles of Vertigo Books, where Boston was reading from "Men of Color" recently.

"We have to dress in a manner that tells the world who we are." Lest the world misjudge a black man.

"We have to wear two faces," Duplax says. The flawed, apprehensive black man reveals himself at home, in private, with friends. The public face is smooth and confident; often it is accused of being arrogant.

Black men can have a conversation about clothes with the same kind of swagger, one-upmanship and energy that they bring to debates about sports, politics and sex. Their braggadocio often has less to do with how much they have spent on their clothes than with how pristine their garments are, on how carefully they've been chosen and on how slickly they are worn. As Boston describes it, the defining element for a black man is not what is worn but how.

One black man mocked another whose tie wasn't neatly knotted: "Did you just throw that up in the air and run under it?"

The Bold and the Beautiful

Some of the black men were at the reading in search of fashion advice. But they also came to see how their style fit into the contemporary fashion aesthetic. They looked to Boston for word on how they are perceived; he would be their mirror.

After a survey of the small crowd at Vertigo, the many variations of black men's style become clear. Duplax wears a glossy yellow rain slicker, black sweater and thick brown corduroy trousers with a baggy fit. His style is a hybrid of prep school and coffeehouse. Other men stand in strict business attire, their jacquard ties signifying their seriousness of purpose. And there is Washington architect Michael Marshall, dressed in a black Donna Karan suit and black turtleneck, reflecting on how his own manner of dress has changed. In college he wore polo shirts and khakis, just like everyone else, and recalls that "white people would say . . . 'You guys look better in those.' " The implication, he says, was that in some indefinable way, black men made preppy clothes seem more interesting, less mundane.

Since graduate school, Marshall's taste has evolved so that he favors clothes by the likes of Karan and Giorgio Armani. He believes that Armani's work, though minimal, is informed by the aesthetics of Native Americans, African art and, of course, the designer's own Italian heritage. And he suspects that it is black men's own unique cultural stew that makes their mode of dress so distinct.

"We're not afraid of color," he says. "We not afraid of pattern. We're not afraid of overdoing it."

Menswear designers have taken heed of that brave approach.

Designers like John Bartlett, Ralph Lauren, Jean Paul Gaultier and Hilfiger have been inspired by the aura of cool – that mix of emotional detachment and anti-establishment posturing – that seems to follow black men whether they are in weekend casuals or business blues.

"Black male style, this mystifying twist on necessity, is the outward expression of an ongoing fight to keep from being rendered invisible," Boston writes.

While it has been a long time since the first black male model walked down a runway or posed in front of a camera, the appearance of black men on the runway remains significant. They are never simply another mannequin in the show. Their presence is meant to bring a heightened sense of masculinity, an element of danger or an upheaval of the norm. The presence of a black man in fashion always means something, even if folks are hard-pressed to figure out exactly what.

As Marshall awaits Boston's presentation at Vertigo Books, he talks about searching for the modernist link between his residential and commercial architecture, the art world and fashion – particularly as it has been propelled by black male style.

Modernism, perhaps, is the key to understanding why the aesthetic of black men seems so distinctive. That philosophy, fundamentally defined as a break from tradition, as challenging the accepted thinking, has helped to pinpoint the influence of bebop, for instance, or the buildings of Mies van der Rohe. African American men's style, in all its forms, stands apart from the tradition, from the expected, because the man wearing the clothes remains – even now – just outside the mainstream. He faces stereotypes that die hard. Wherever he goes, he stands as the representative of his community. Or perhaps he is the visible manifestation of a world described as hidden simply because the powers that be aren't privy to it.

A black man's style is dynamic because of the mere fact that he is black and he does not have the luxury of wearing nondescript jeans and button-down shirts and feeling sure that he will be noticed, respected, heard. Instead he brings to his attire the swagger, confidence and cool to say to the world, the boss, the passerby, the Man, that he is not to be ignored.

Back to the top