Monica L. Miller, the author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, spoke with Tell Me More’s Michel Martin about the past, present and future of black men’s fashion.
Miller, an associate professor of English at Barnard College, explains that African-American men have used style as a way to challenge stereotypes about who they are. “Sometimes the well-dressed black man coming down the street is asking you to look and think.”
Victor Holliday, associate producer
of on-air fundraising at NPR and one of the resident kings of style, tells Martin that he learned about the importance of fashion at an early age. “When I was 5 years old, I knew exactly how I was going to look,” he says. “And that was the year I got my first trench coat and my top hat.”Read more at NPR and listen to the segment