Fashioning Freedom
Join us in the Longwood Gardens Open Air Theatre for an evening with Kimberly Jenkins, who will lead us in the Voices Underground celebration of African American fashion and its critical relationship to the work of freedom. Joining Jenkins for this event is an Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design and fellow in the Costume Institute of Metropolitan Museum of Art Dr. Jonathan Square, as well as Founder and CEO of Grant BLVD and Blk Ivy Thrift Dr. Kimberly McGlonn. This event will consist of a colorful lecture from Ms. Jenkins and a fireside chat with Dr. Square and Dr. McGlonn, followed by a fashion show highlighting the work of several African American curators and designers and a musical performance by Madelyn Brene.
Kimberly Jenkins is founder of The Fashion and Race Database and Artis Solomon Consulting, having formerly held the position of Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University and lecturer at Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute. She has spent over ten years studying the impact of our clothes and how we express ourselves, through the lenses of politics, race, psychology and anthropology.
Dr. Jonathan Michael Square is the Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design. He holds a PhD from New York University, M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and B.A. from Cornell University. He was previously a lecturer in the Committee on Degree in History and Literature at Harvard University and a fellow in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He curated Past Is Present at the Herron School of Art and Design that closed in January. He has another show titled Afric- American Picture Gallery that opens at Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in 2025. Square runs the digital humanities project Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom.
Dr. Kimberly McGlonn is an advocate for justice & environmentalism, advocacy that informs her approach to leadership in the fashion industry. As Founder & CEO of the manufacturing start-up Grant Blvd®, she oversees the creative direction and growth strategy of the brand. Grant Blvd’s mission is to construct stylish, sustainably sourced fashion by creating living wage jobs for women, particularly those who are formerly incarcerated. Founded in 2017, Grant Blvd is the first Black - owned B Corp in North America in the fashion space. Outside of these roles, Kimberly disrupts via her second company, the thrift/vintage concept Blk Ivy, which tells the story of fashion as activism through a curation of garments which amplify the style of 1954 - 1972, her podcast “The School for Disrupters”, and her role as faculty member of Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.