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Fashion is not just about putting a top and bottom together that looks good. It’s an expression of one’s inner world and a reflection of the outer world. Bow down to these eight Black fashion icons who defined “serve.”
Josephine Baker
1906 to 1975
Josephine Baker started in the vaudeville scene but was quickly swept into the silver screen, becoming the first Black woman to star in a motion picture. She eventually took her career to France, where she lived as an expatriate. She traveled the world, performing for the troops and worked for some time for the French resistance, allegedly smuggling messages in her sheet music.
Baker’s style sense was international, sophisticated and fierce, like her character. She donned the Eton crop haircut, popular at the time – short, slicked down, with little curly cues plastered to her forehead. She was all glitz and glamour with fur shawls and a bejeweled headband. Baker exuded movie star energy.
