If you aren’t familiar with SSENSE, it’s the online epicenter for buying luxury brands and high-end streetwear. Founded by the three Atallah brothers, the goal was to take away the obstacles and headaches that could arise from purchasing high-end fashion and democratize the latest, coolest brands.
More than any other platform right now, SSENSE does curation right. They’re painfully aware of which pieces from new collections are a fit for their audience. They show you what’s relevant and hot right now — prioritizing pieces you’ll genuinely like rather than what’s just being pushed by the brand. Now, SSENSE carries brands of all price points from Adidas to Versace.
Another highlight: SSENSE is known for its brand diversity. They often highlight Black-owned brands and showcase collections from people of color and lesser-known designers. To close out Black History Month 2024, SSENSE is teaming up with none other than ESSENCE: a pairing that makes perfect sense.
ESSENCE, the lifestyle publication geared towards Black women, is helping feature three designers and artists: Bianca Saunders, Mowalola, and Stanley Raffington. The series will showcase their designs and tell their story.
According to SSENSE’s site,
“The two brands are turning ESSENCE’s “In The Studio” print franchise into a video series hosted by Lynette Nylander. The series will spotlight the achievements and creativity of Black designers who have significantly impacted the menswear realm. With three episodes, each featuring a distinguished designer, the series offers exclusive insights into their creative processes and journey,”
Meet The SSENSE X ESSENCE Feature Designers
Bianca Saunders
Bianca Saunders
British GQ
Bianca Saunders’ clothing embraces masculinity in womenswear. Her jackets will always be a bit oversized, or the style will mimic a classic streetwear bomber that could have been borrowed from boys like Jeremy Allen-White and Jacob Elordi — a girl can dream.
“The essence of Saunders' clothing lives in the details, which point to how she subverts ideals often associated with menswear.”
Finding the intersectionality between workwear and streetwear, Saunders clothing is genderless and trendy. Some of her signatures include layered shirts, tucked waists, and somewhat minimalist designs.
@babyboyflame Buying Black: @Bianca Saunders #streetwear #menswear #blackownedbusiness #fashion #fashiontok #fashiontiktok ♬ Oldschool - Cookin Soul
Mowalola
Mowalola
Joyce NG
Mowalola, a highly sought after designer whose pieces have been worn by the likes of Rihanna and Naomi Campbell, is a bit of an icon in the fashion world. Her mantra for fashion is “do what you want to do” and that’s exactly the kind of energy Mowalola’s clothes give off.
Much like Bianca Saunders, Mowalola is known for her gender bending designs. Inspired by cinema, many of her collections revolve around movies. And this is on full display at her cinematic runway shows.
She brings an edge to her designs through textures like leather and intentionally placed cutouts. She’s not afraid to make public commentary on race and gender, making her runway shows incredibly popular.
“The British designer has shifted the cultural zeitgeist with her boundary-pushing collections inspired by the world around her.”
@i_d Replying to @JAC So are we! #ferragamo #maximiliandavis #tiktokfashion #mfw #mowalola ♬ original sound - i-D
Stanley Raffington
Stanley Raffington
ESSENCE
In a world where the Chanel black-and-white aesthetic hails ever-popular, especially amongst those emulating Old Money Style and Sofia Richie’s closet, it’s hard to find designers who aren’t afraid of a bit of color…enter Stanley Raffington.
Often incorporating Rastafarian colors of red, yellow, and black as an ode to his Jamaican roots, Raffington isn’t going to shy away from any hue. He quickly rose into fashion prominency when Madonna and FKA Twigs attended his show, which included 3D printed accessories.
Constantly inspired by his Jamaican roots and the nostalgia of past trends, you will see lots of Y2K nods in Stanley Raffington’s clothing. He’s embraced tech in the fashion world by utilizing 3D printing in many of his designs and runway shows, and he’s not slowing down now.
@yungstanz Process behind my 3d printed curve bag. Taking inspiration from the architecture of Zaha Hadid, mixing new technology with natural materials and craft. Available now exclusively at @SSENSE ♬ Never Lose Me - Flo Milli
How Has Clarence Thomas Survived the #MeToo Movement?
What the campaign against sexual harassment has revealed about past allegations against the Supreme Court justice.
Since 1991, Clarence Thomas has served as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court with a lifetime term.
Yet shortly before his nomination to the post, Anita Hill testified before a Senate committee that Thomas had sexually harassed her for three years at two different government organizations where they had worked together. Nearly three decades before #MeToo, Hill's testimony was the first major public allegation and investigation into sexual harassment in the workplace. It sparked a divisive discussion about harassment, power, trust and culpability across the country.
After detailing her experiences to the committee, Hill nonetheless watched Thomas win his nomination to the Supreme Court that same year. It was a position where he would have, among other responsibilities, authority over the rights and privileges of women under the Constitution for decades to come.
In February of this year, as part of the mighty wave of women's voices rising against sexual harassment and toppling the men who used it as a tool of power against them, several women brought Clarence Thomas back into the discussion and under the fierce light of the #MeToo movement. With the renewed attention also came calls for impeachment and evidence to support the push.
During the 1991 hearings, it was Anita Hill's word against that of soon-to-be-Justice Thomas.
In 1981, Hill was working for Thomas at the Department of Education when the harassment began. She described to the committee Thomas's attempts to ask her out and the numerous times he talked explicitly about sex acts at work. He later convinced her to move with him to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
The harassment continued at the EEOC. Thomas described to Hill the pornographic videos he watched and disclosed to her his preferences for specific parts of female bodies. In 1983, Hill escaped the harassment by moving to Oklahoma to teach law. Finally, in 1991, she brought her experiences to the attention of a Senate prepared to nominate Thomas to the Supreme Court.
Anita Hill stepped in front of an audience of hundreds of millions and described what she suffered working for Thomas. And Thomas took his Supreme Court seat later that year. "I was disappointed but not surprised," Hill said.
Hill was alone on the stand during the 1991 hearings though others had been willing to testify alongside her.
"Four African-American women, including me, were willing to join professor Hill and testify about Thomas' behavior," wrote Angela Wright-Shannon in February. "We all were denied a voice." Without social media, these testimonies were simply never heard. Wright-Shannon recently described for the Huffington Post her own similar experiences with Thomas: he repeatedly asked her to date him and asked about her breast size.
Another belated testimony came from Lillian McEwen, Thomas's ex-girlfriend. "The Clarence I know was certainly capable not only of doing the things that Anita Hill said he did, but it would be totally consistent with the way he lived his personal life then," she said in an interview in 2010. The #MeToo environment of 2018 has allowed women to come forward together, in force, against the men who harassed them. Jill Abramson believes #MeToo might have allowed others to join Hill on the stand against Thomas and shifted the balance of credibility toward the victims.
After the recent months of accusations, resignations and lettings-go achieved by #MeToo, Thomas's ascension following his hearing and the existence of any subsequent career for him seem ridiculous. How could he have been appointed and how is he still a Justice? Yet, the President of the United States won his election and continues to hold power despite the infamous circumstances of his own history of harassment.
"How do you remove sexual predators from office when all attempts to prevent their ascension in the first place failed?" asks Wright-Shannon. The answer, according to Abramson, is perjury.
Since 1989, three federal judges have been impeached for charges including lying. Among the leaked documents of Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a "Memo on Impeaching Clarence Thomas," written in 2010, that assembles evidence of his perjury. Abramson's article details some of the lies he told, under oath, in front of the Senate Committee and Anita Hill, about the harassment—lies that can now be confirmed as such by the testimony of other victims. The #MeToo movement offers the possibility of strength in numbers that was lacking during the original hearings but that could now present significant corroboration to the perjury claim.
Wright-Shannon, Rose Jourdain and Sukari Hardnett were all victims willing to offer their stories to the Senate committee but didn't get the chance. Now, they and others can fight back.
In the fall of 2016, Moira Smith, an attorney, wrote a Facebook post about the night Clarence Thomas groped her at a dinner party in 1999. He squeezed her butt several times while she was setting the table and asked her to sit next to him. After finally making the incident public on Facebook, it also became the subject of an article in the National Law Journal.
The case for the impeachment of Thomas centers, currently, on his perjury during the 1991 hearings.
But Moira's account of his sexual misconduct at the dinner occurred when he was already a Supreme Court Justice, a detail that could add fuel to the impeachment push.
The current U.S. President secured his victory over the accusations of sexual misconduct by nineteen women, an event that is startlingly similar to Thomas's nomination after Anita Hill's testimony twenty-seven years ago. But since the election, the #MeToo movement has risen up in fury against men guilty of harassing women and has begun to secure justice for the victims. Now, more than ever, the circumstances seem to be prime for the impeachment of a justice guilty of sexual misconduct and perjury.