STYLE THROWBACK: BLAXPLOITATION
How Black Film Influenced 70s Style
Originally published in Vogue Italia in 2015, This essay explores the Black film genre of the 1970s and its influence on the 70s from the perspective of style and empowerment.
In the 70s when fashion danced across hardwood and ceramic, loose silhouettes met with glam and sloppy over-processed hair and rock — The Black community kept it cute.
And they as sharp as a double-edged sword. I wouldn’t be born for another decade after, but I heard the stories and saw the photos.
Threads — slang, for clothes.
I head it in more than a few of the films, “Dolemite,” “Shaft,” “Superfly,” “Foxy Brown,” and my favorite, “Cleopatra Jones,” all a part of the genre that kept the lights on in the 70s in underrepresented theaters — Blaxploitation.
But it wasn’t just movements in film, and the launching of the careers of iconic actors such as Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier, Blaxploitation made a considerable impact on fashion, whether fashion wants to admit it or not.
And I suspect, as with most things having to do with crediting the Black community, it…
