Long Overdue
For the latest installment of The Atlantic’s “Inheritance” project, designer Charles Harbison has written an essay about what fashion owes working-class Black women.
His insights are part of “What the Body Holds,” the third chapter of the Inheritance reporting project. His piece is part of a collection of stories, poetry and photography that is geared to the recognition, celebration and reclamation of the Black body.
During an interview Wednesday afternoon, Harbison said he was approached by
The Atlantic’s Jenisha Watts last summer. Noting how his upcoming collaborative collection with Banana Republic centers around such “hot button topics of the moment” as identities and sustainability, the designer said that to make it more personal he zeroed in on his mother as a muse.
Growing up in a small town in North Carolina, Harrison’s mother worked as a tool set builder in a tool factory for nearly 20 years. “Now she’s an administrative assistant. But during those formative years, I would watch her come home from really grueling work and still navigate her life with grace and poise. On the weekend, I would just watch her transform into this more confident, elegant version of herself. That was also the version I got to see on shopping trips and things that we would do together as our special time,” he said, adding that helped him to express himself creatively and understand the kind of feminism that he hoped to encourage in other women.
“In the fashion industry, we make beautiful things for people, who have the means to acquire them. In hand with that is a classist kind of mentality that can easily be encouraged in fashion. When highlighting muses, we often go to individuals who already reflect those upperclass ideas. I never saw that growing up, but I never felt that my life was void of elegance and sophistication and even luxury.
It’s important to diversity the entities that we are looking at as muses and as inspiration to the benefit of all women,” Harbison said. “To diversify the market adds a bit more interest to what we make.”
To lead to more lasting change, the industry needs “to add more range when it comes to fashion designers. If we are expanding the catalogue of individuals who are encouraged to create, as well as supported, we are going to counter the stifled nature that American fashion has been taking on as of late. And we’re doing that. Collectively, the industry is working to eliminate that and counteract that with design that’s navigating gender equality, nonbinary fashion, sustainability and [with] voices that are Black American and of color across the gamut,” Harbison said.
The New York-based designer recently presented his first signature collection in five years. Banana Republic sponsored the event, which also featured the new collaborative line. The full launch of the company’s e-commerce is slated for the end of this month.
— ROSEMARY FEITELBERG
Group. She spent 13 years at Condé Nast in various roles earlier in her career.
The appointment means that Plagemann’s role has been partially filled as her title was chief business officer of the style division with oversight of fashion and beauty business revenue at Vogue, GQ, Allure, Glamour and W until the latter was sold, as well as being Vogue’s commercial lead. There has been no word on if a new style division chief business officer will be appointed.
Plagemann let her team know in a memo Friday that after 11 years she has decided to “pursue other interests,” although there is much speculation that the departure was chief content officer Anna Wintour’s decision. A Vogue representative denied this was the case.
— KATHRYN HOPKINS follow-up to his bestseller “Wake Up” for Murdoch’s HarperCollins.
His new daily show — set to launch in early 2022 — will be produced out of London with Winnie Dunbar Nelson, who worked with Morgan on “GMB” producing. It will stream in the U.S. on Fox Nation, in the U.K. on new service TalkTV and on Sky News Australia. He’ll also host a series of true crime documentaries.
The deal returns Morgan to the Murdoch empire, where he began his career as a reporter for the British tabloid The Sun.
“I’m thrilled to be returning to News Corp., which is where I began my media career more than 30 years ago,” Morgan said in a statement unveiling the deal. “Rupert Murdoch has been a constant and fearless champion of free speech and we are going to be building something new and very exciting together. I want my global show to be a fearless forum for lively debate and agenda-setting interviews, and a place that celebrates the right of everyone to have an opinion, and for those opinions to be vigorously examined and challenged.”
Morgan famously quit GMB earlier this year after a furious backlash over comments he made on the program about Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. Most pointedly questioned Markle’s contention that she felt suicidal and sought support from the palace only to be turned down.
“I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she said, Meghan Markle,” he said on “GMB.” “I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report.”
His commentary elicited a record number — more than 40,000 — of public complaints to U.K. regulator OfCom.
— MARISA GUTHRIE