Willi Smith Is Finally Getting His Flowers Nearly 35 Years Later — Here’s What Took So Long

Courtesy of Anthony Barboza, © Anthony Barboza By Blake Newby ·June 17, 2021June 17, 2021

Particularly these days, the need for comfort in fashion is imperative. However, there was a time when apparel was marked solely by appeal, giving very little thought to ease of wear and long-term functionality. Style and comfort rarely if ever existed in the same space. That was, until a young, Black designer by the name of Willi Smith began to shake things up. Now, nearly 35 years after his death, with his name still not as acclaimed and widespread as it deserves, a new exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City is dedicated to changing that.

“He’s known as the godfather and king of the creative streetwear industry as we know it today,” Shelby Ivey Christie, an America fashion historian with with a focus on the (Photo by John Patrick O’Gready/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

His impression was so felt, in fact, that luxury fashion houses have taken notes. “There’s now room for streetwear in fashion,” Christie says. “There was a time where there was really wasn’t ready-to-wear, it was just couture. Now there’s this new space carved out where streetwear serves as a serious contender in fashion. We see legacy houses like Louis Vuitton and Dior and Gucci putting out streetwear. No, they’re not converting streetwear brands, necessarily, but they’re operating in that lightning.” She references the origins of the Gucci and Dapper Dan partnership, as well as logomania. “The spirit of clothes now is just overall more relaxed,” she says. “You might get a track pant or a sneaker, or t-shirts from these luxury houses, which is not something I think we would have gotten before we saw the influence of Willi.”

Laceine Owsley Wedderburn and Damon Pooser in “Take-Off From a Forced Landing,” 1984, Courtesy of Lois Greenfield, © Lois Greenfield

With an impact so wide, one would assume that the name Willi Smith would be more recognized. However, like many of his other Black fashion counterparts, his innovations were broadly diminished. “It goes back to documentation and having stewards over this work,” Christies says. “The New York Times put out an article where they did a report on the lack of Black artifacts and Black resources kept in museums compared to the amount of European documentation and resources — that also applies to costumes and Black research. We still see Black designers getting their original designs appropriated.” Christie references an incident last summer when Black-owned fashion brand Hanifa wowed with a one-of-a-kind digital collection and fashion show. Less than two weeks later, major publications were attributing the collection to a luxury fashion house, completely eliminating Hanifa from the conversation. “This is happening in a time when we do have enough information and technology systems to track it,” she says. “So imagine back in those days where everything was analog and written in printing. There was a lot of erasure just because there wasn’t a lot of visibility for the everyday person or even sometimes the designer themselves to have visibility into what was being published and was being printed. Fashion historically has been from the white, European perspective, so things that are outside of that scope were not deemed important enough to document or celebrate.” Christie insists that’s how Willi and the work of so many other Black designers and their efforts and work just funneled out, they simply weren’t prioritized. “I think the tide is kind of changing,” she says. “Black talent in the industry are definitely forcing these conversations, advocating and speaking up for things outside and beyond the white gaze. There’s some change there, but it still has a long way to go.”

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