Erykah Badu to Style Pyer Moss’ F/W 2016 Fashion Show.
by superselected · Fashion Week, Fashion-News, NYFW, Pyer MOss ·

Erykah Badu

Erykah Badu is known for her unique style as much as she’s known for her unique sounds. For the upcoming Fall 2016 New York Fashion Week, Badu, who also counts DJ and Doula, among her many talents, will be adding “stylist” to her list of credits.

The eclectic songstress recently announced that she will be working with designer Kerby Jean-Raymond to style his brand Pyer Moss’ Fall 2016 fashion show.

“(Kerby and I) were a match made in fashion heaven,” says Badu, “We share an eye for truth through art. Though risky at times, he stands in his truth. And the strength of that truth lies in the belief of his vision. I’m inspired by the bold statements he makes in this, sometimes, fickle industry.”

Last season, Pyer Moss sparked discussion and controversy over its Spring 2016 collection presentation, which made a statement about police brutality. During the presentation, Jean-Raymond screened a short film featuring footage from the police killings of Eric Garner and Walter Scott, as well as footage of Nicole Bell (the widow of Sean Bell, who was killed by the police in 2008) and Wanda Johnson (the mother of Oscar Grant III, who was killed in 2008). Models wore blood splattered white shoes and clothing that read “I can’t breathe,” — Eric Garner’s last words.

Pyer Moss Spring 2016

For the upcoming season, Jean-Raymond vows to continue putting forth thought-provoking collections and shows.

“The presentation is a meditation on the tension and mental anguish that exists when conflicting demands are placed on an individual, thereby resulting in confusion in thinking and communication,” reads a statement from the brand. “In the 1950s, anthropologist George Bateson coined the term ‘Double Bind’; which he found to be a common occurrence in the childhoods of adults patients diagnosed as schizophrenic.”

“The black experience in America is the ultimate double bind; a place where natural born citizens live an immigrant experience in the only land they’ve known as home. A place where black culture is praised, commodified, and appropriated, while black people are criticised, vilified, and hunted for sport. A certain functional schizophrenia has to exist to cope with the dissonance of having a black man in the White House while a black body lies for four hours in the streets of Ferguson.”