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
Could a Sanders/Warren Ticket Be the Progressive Dream Team?
Together, Sanders and Warren promised radical hope—and wound up derailing the Democratic debate.
"Marooned on a desert island."
"Bonnie and Clyde."
"It's Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren against the world."
These kinds of whimsical headlines, loaded with Americana folklore and reality TV surrealism, swirled across the Internet after the first installment of the second Democratic debates. They stemmed from the unlikely but oddly seamless union of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the second and third highest-polling and by far the most radically progressive candidates in the race to win the Democratic primary.
Standing in the dead center of the row of candidates, in between the youthful pillars of Buttegieg and Beto and far away from Marianne Williamson's mystic emanations and John Delaney's bitter combativeness, they seemed to cling to each other. By proxy, they seemed to cling to a similar collection of dreams, dreams that have been pulling a great deal of progressives towards the far reaches of socialism, or at least to the dissolution of income inequality.
Image via WLRN
Watching Sanders vehemently defend the policies that he brought into the public eye—Medicare For All, free college, a refusal to accept superPAC donations—and watching Warren defend him (when she could get more than a few words in), the idea of a Sanders/Warren dream team entered the realm of plausibility.
Though either could lead, Sanders seems like the clear choice for the presidential candidate, with Warren as a strong VP. After all, the Warren/Sanders ethos thrives because it is buoyed by the idealism that Bernie popularized in 2016.
The fact that Sanders is a democratic socialist, while Warren is a self-proclaimed capitalist, is the primary reason why Bernie would be the most feasible leader of the duo. Sanders' campaign caught fire in 2016 because he spoke to a generation caught in the stranglehold of mind-blowing income inequality, a generation that faces the destabilizing knowledge that the world faces certain catastrophe if climate change is not addressed—and that capitalism has continuously favored the fossil fuel companies that prevent necessary environmental changes. Like most youth-led movements, Sanders supporters seek radical, totalizing change of the sort that's only be possible when the old systems are completely deconstructed.
On the whole, Sanders is more anti-establishment and seems more likely to reel in the followers of Trump's "drain the swamp" who could care less about actual policy, and she's more likely to inspire mass mobilization and excitement among those seeking radical change. As The Atlantic succinctly put it, "Sanders is fighting for a political revolution. Warren isn't."
Warren, for her part, maintains a link to solid ground with her vast collection of plans and policies—plans that, in theory, could be the perfect antidote to any accusation that Sanders' policies are implausible.
Still, last night, it seemed like Warren and Sanders were out in dreamland, reeling through a political Coney Island. This isn't necessarily a death knell, though. Together on a single ticket, their shared pull could be enough.
Torn apart, though, their campaigns might result in another 2016. Arguably, Bernie's campaign was a death knell for Hillary Clinton, as it provided the initial framework for Trump's demonization of her. In the same way, progressives are now putting up firewalls against the candidates they see as too middle-of-the-road, like Joe Biden.
In her opening statement, the ever-practical Warren reminded the audience that any candidate would be preferable to Donald Trump. While this is true, many progressives feel that the 2020 election presents an unmissable opportunity to completely change the direction of politics. In a nation that was prepared to elect someone as disruptive as Donald Trump, it seems feasible that we could handle a little more chaos, especially if it comes in tandem with the promise of a better world.
At the debate, with rampant arm-flailing and drawn-out storytelling, Warren and Sanders promised that better world. They stood for the dissolution of private health insurance companies and student debt in spite of endless criticisms from the other candidates. Against the totalizing extremity of their views, the other candidates who supported for-profit colleges and private insurance in any capacity seemed lost in the past—or lodged in reality, depending again on how willing you are to take the leap into their alternate state of mind.
But in last night's debate, the binary they created between themselves and the others didn't always work in their favor. Somehow, by the end of the night, both the Warren/Sanders island and the rest of the Democrats seemed to come out as losers.
This raises the question: Is extremism really the solution? For young progressives, it absolutely is. For this group, fighting against a rigged system that buoys the rich and throws the poor to the wolves, extreme action is the only thing that will work. Peace and love failed in the 1970s, and moderation is code for the status quo. For progressives, it's time to wake up from the dream presented at the start of the American capitalist experiment.
For other non-radical or socialism-phobic Democrats, the Sanders/Warren ticket is the stuff of nightmares, and the progressives are the ones lost in the dream. For those who merely want Trump gone and apparent order reinstated in the Oval Office, it seems that the division between the progressives and the middle-of-the-road Democrats is an unfortunate diversion.
Perhaps middle-of-the-road Democratic candidates could accrue more favor with would progressives if they could convince them (and the nation on the whole) that they actually stand for something (other than defeating Trump). In the technologically saturated mess of a modern era, one thing is certain: Policy is secondary to a candidate's ability to shape a vision of a better future.
For a long time, Sanders has been the best architect of that better future that the Democrats have. Though he and Warren presented an appealing team, seeing them cut down to size at the debate last night did nothing for the party and its motivation. Perhaps, had the debate been framed more as a discussion of specific policies rather than a black-and-white argument that pitted stagnancy against change, it wouldn't have been defined by such a strong feeling of premature defeat.
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