Posted Without Comment.

Amid all the praise of First Lady Michelle Obama’s fashion choices for the inaugural festivities, the Black Artists Association is taking her to task for not wearing anything by an African American designer. Cofounder Amnau Eele said Wednesday she will make a formal appeal to the First Lady’s office on behalf of the BAA. “It’s fine and good if you want to be all ‘Kumbaya’ and ‘We Are the World’ by representing all different countries. But if you are going to have Isabel Toledo do the inauguration dress, and Jason Wu do the evening gown, why not have Kevan Hall, B Michael, Stephen Burrows or any of the other black designers do something too?” Eele said.  …

 “It’s one thing to look at the world without color but she had seven slots to wear designer clothes. Why wasn’t she wearing the clothes of a black designer? That was our moment.”

[via WWD.]

Hat-tip Proper Talks and Scott.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • rakia

    Amnau Eele needs to go sit down somewhere.

  • ladyfresshh

    is this a joke G.D.?

    It’s fine and good if you want to be all ‘Kumbaya’ and ‘We Are the World’ by representing all different countries.

    that’s racist as shit considering those designers are american

  • This ‘our moment’ garbage has got to go. It was her moment to wear wtf-ever she wanted; which she did and looked fab doing it.

  • ladyfresshh

    shani-o – that disturbed me as well

  • geo

    hahahahaha.

  • That was uncalled for and lends to the idea that blacks’ job is to whine every time we think something isn’t black enough. Does the Obamas’ dentist have to be black too? Their auto mechanic? Newspaper delivery boy?

  • @rakia – lol and agreed.

    and i know i probably won’t make any friends with this comment, but i’m not crazy about the dress. it makes her look bulky about the middle and…are those pom-poms adorning it? yeesh.

  • @ksolo – I also did not like the dress. I thought it totally concealed her figure.

  • t’s one thing to look at the world without color

    Is this supposed to mean that none of the designers she happens to like are people of color? Because, um.

  • Had they not noticed that the first lady was a black woman herself? Cause that kinda says it all. Or can she only be identified by wearing a dashiki?

  • Molly

    Michelle Obama wearing that dress was about endorsing a young, relatively unknown designer. Her wearing that dress was an open endorsement of the arts and a lot of artists embraced it as such.