This photo is from our very cold winter. We were in the middle of a blizzard and I spotted this cute and cozy couple walking in the street. If you look really close, you will see that they both have designs on the back of their jacket.
Monthly Archives: May 2011
For Colored Girls…
This picture is from a show I photographed for Lehman College, For Colored Girls who Considered Suicide when the RAINBOW was Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Actress: Carol Carpio
For Colored Girls…
This picture is from a show I photographed for Lehman College, For Colored Girls who Considered Suicide when the RAINBOW was Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Couples
WOMEN’S REVENGE
‘Cash, cheque or charge?’ I asked,
after folding items the woman wished to purchase.
As she fumbled for her wallet I noticed a remote control
for a television set in her purse.
‘So, do you always carry your TV remote?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she replied, ‘ but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and
I figured this was the most evil thing
I could do to him legally.’
( anecdote taken from an email.)
For Colored Girls…
This picture is from a show I photographed for Lehman College, For Colored Girls who Considered Suicide when the RAINBOW was Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Actress Elaine Glover
Pandoro by Pasticceria Biasetto
The dialogue between my family enjoying Pandoro on a Tuesday afternoon:
Me: (to April and Sammy) What are you eating?
April: The cake Yunice brought from Gustiamo.
Me: Can you cut me a piece please?
Dad: There’s something about that cake, it’s not like a regular pound cake.
Sammy: I know….it’s like…spongy.
Dad: Yeah, Sammy, you got that right. It’s spongy.
Me: Thanks! Why, what a big slice!
Yunice: Aww, just eat it. The slice looks big but it’s not that big. It’s like cotton candy. You think you have enough but soon you would want some more.
Me: *Sigh* I want some more already!
Pandoro is made by award winning pastry chef Luigi Biasetto in Veneto, a region in Italy. It is made with organic ingredients (you can see a list of the ingredients at Gustiamo’s website) and comes wrapped so beautiful that you want to keep the package after you’ve eaten the cake. That white stuff is powered sugar. It comes in an individual package. If you forget to put the sugar on the cake (which you may not want to do), you can add the sugar to butter-pecan ice-cream…I tried it and it’s good!
Couples
UNDERSTANDING WOMEN..
(A MAN’S PERSPECTIVE)
I know I’m not going to understand women.
I’ll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax,
pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root,
and still be afraid of a spider.
( anecdote taken from email)
Couples
W O R D S..
A husband read an article to his wife about how many words women use a day…
30,000 to a man’s 15,000.
The wife replied, ‘The reason has to be
because we have to repeat everything to men…
The husband then turned to his wife and asked, ‘What?’
(anecdote taken from email.)
Rowing with Crew
I am a J.Crew fan. I love J. Crew.
Last night I went to their site like if I was checking my facebook. It’s a habit. It’s a daily routine for me.
On their home page they introduced me to the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and two designers who were the recipients of this award. After looking at Prabal Gurung collection and watching the Billy Reid videos, I was impressed. A part of me wanted to buy something of Gurung and another part of me wanted to visit Reid’s store in Alabama.
As I got ready for bed, I ruminated about the fashion scene and silently wished I saw more African-American artist and designers.
With that said, I give kudos to Harlem Fashion Row, an organization in Harlem whose main objective is to ‘create diversity in fashion’. After browsing through their site and voting for a designer whose clothing line I would love to see in stores (Joseph Bethune), I realize that there was really no need to wish to see more African-American artist and designers as there is a need to want African-Americans to be given the opportunities that are often given to their counterparts.
There are African-American artist out there, we just don’t see them.
As the founder and CEO of Harlem Fashion Row, Brandice N. Henderson, mentioned in the video posted on their site, “80% of Successful American designers come out of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion fund and in the last six years there has not been one men’s wear or women’s wear designer of African descent.”
She continued to say that “African-Americans and Latinos spend 22 billion dollars a year on apparel but this group of [designers that] represents ‘us’ is less than one percent of designers that are available in our major department stores.”
This makes me as an American, not as an African-American, but as an American think about my country and exactly where I should channel my money. Are African-Americans really not being given the chance? Are they really being kept out of the industry?
Am I rowing with the wrong crew?
The Bethune Brothers
On Friday night after church the young people were in a frenzy.
Yes, God is good all the time and all the time God is good. Yes, we were happy to see one another.
However, when we gathered together to talk, it was about something new, something peculiar, something authentic.
It was about the Bethune Brothers.
Joseph Bethune, a member of our church, was mentioned in the New York Daily News on Sunday, May15 as a member of Harlem’s Fashion Row. According to the article, Harlem’s Fashion Row is one part networking group and one part fashion incubator which also offers seminars and conversation series. Harlem’s Fashion Row picked 6 of their top designers out of 15 to compete for a spot during fashion week this fall.
Joseph is among the six young African American designer’s who are competing for a show during fashion week in New York.
The founder of Bethune Brothers, grew up along with the rest of his siblings in the South Bronx. As someone apart of his church family, I noticed that Joseph was more quite and almost shy compared to his rough brothers.
On Friday, when the youth were talking about his clothing line and how excited they were for him, his mom chimed in that she taught him how to sew when he was younger.
In hope and anticipation for Joseph, many of us walked away vowing to vote for Joseph as soon as we got home. Especially my sister’s in Christ who know Joseph knows how hard it is for us to shop when looking for something modest.
I am happy for Joseph and hope he would be on the runway in Harlem this year.
Picking Joseph is like picking hope- not to sound ‘Obama’- hope for his parents who raised 15 children in the Bronx and gave them all they had and hope for his Church family who are hoping for designers who understand the concept of something modest but chic.
Vote for Joseph at http://harlemsfashionrow.com/