Earlier this month, Patrick Kelly’s name was on everyone’s lips as FIT brought together industry experts, academics, and journalists at the Black Fashion Designers Symposium. Dr. Monica Miller and Eric Darnell Pitchard led a conversation about the famed African-American fashion designer, whose legacy as an enthusiastic and determined young creative paved the way for a generation of black designers today.
Kelly was a master storyteller, using his collections to convey the depths of Southern American culture on the international scene. His grandmother, who brought fashion magazines home from the houses she cleaned in Mississippi, was his muse, and his aunt, a seamstress, taught him to sew.
However brilliant his ascent to fame, his career was incredibly brief. Kelly showed 10 extravagant and whimsical womenswear collections under his own label in Paris. In 1988, he was inducted into the Chambre Syndicale, the first American designer to be voted in. His work was powerful and singular, with the energy to create a new wave in fashion.
Kelly was the darling of the European and American press, living in Paris and charming an entire industry. Backed by Linda Wachner, he mounted expensive, high-energy, and moving shows, and garnering international success for his signature jersey garments in bold colors. All the same, Kelly championed showcasing black women on the catwalk but still felt the burden of being a black designer in Paris.
Kelly’s workmanship reflected a couture sensibility, in particular for his commitment to producing exclusive, one-off designs that were experimental, irreverent, and forward-thinking. Despite his youth, Kelly’s industriousness and determination played a key role in his incredible achievements.
Kelly’s work was the subject of a 2014 exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and 10 years earlier, the focus of a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Kelly, who passed away in 1990 as a result of complications from AIDS, was remembered at a memorial at FIT in a eulogy spoken by Gloria Steinem.
A dress from Kelly’s F/W ’86 collection is featured in FIT’s Black Fashion Designers exhibition, on view now.
Editor’s Note: Fashion Flashback is a new series looking at late designers who have had a significant impact on fashion. In honor of Black History Month, our second installment focuses on Patrick Kelly.
