National Association of Fashion and Accessory Designers

A look at who the National Association of Fashion and Accessory Designers (NAFAD) were and their operations.

Being Black in fashion is frequently reduced to a matter of access and opportunity. Historically, the luxury fashion industry had been dominated by white people. There is a decades-long structure in place that prevents people of color, particularly Black fashion talent, from entering an already elite market. These principles have been preserved for generations, not only in luxury fashion but also in how opportunities and resources are distributed, and talent is defined.

There were no famous Black models or clothes designers in 1945, when EBONY, a champion of Black beauty leading the struggle for national recognition of Black models, released its debut issue. Early issues of the magazine highlighted the most stylish Black women including Lena Home, Katherine Dunham, Dorothy Dandridge, Marian Anderson, and Etta Moten Barnett. In 1949, the National Council of Negro Women sponsored the formation of a trade group. The New York chapter of the National Association of Fashion and Accessory Designers (NAFAD), as a professional organization for the growing number of Black women in the fashion industry, who had previously been largely barred from entry.

It was established by Mary McCleod Bethune-Cookman and Jeanetta Welch Brown, who had both been engaged in advocating for professional possibilities for Black women. This was Bethune-first step into fashion, although she had a long history of promoting Black women and pushing for Black women’s upward mobility in all fields. Bethune-Cookman was a co-founder of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), which also co-founded the HBCU that became Bethune Cookman University.

Zelda Wynn Valdes, who created the Playboy bunny costumes and clothed Black celebrities such as Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, and Mae West, was named president of the New York City chapter, which included numerous Black fashion experts. Ruby Bailey was a famous member who made costumes for Harlem theater plays and had her fashion shows. NAFAD’s work-built connections between Black fashion industry experts and mainstream “gatekeepers” like Vogue magazine, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the world of Seventh Avenue designers and couturiers. In 1949, one of NAFAD’s inaugural activities was a meeting for members at the Theresa Hotel in New York City. The inaugural NAFAD conference featured judging of member-submitted designs. The judging panel comprised Vogue managing editor Esther Lyman, well-known fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, celebrity designer Molly Parnis, and well-known hatmaker Sally Victor. Wynn Valdes was chosen parliamentarian in the 1950 convention in Philadelphia and was one of the primary organizers of the group’s second annual conference, which was held in New York in 1951, and she remained an active member of the organization.

By 1951, “NAFAADers” were looking for formal collaboration with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art(MET) so that members might have access to “one of America’s main sources of ideas on style innovations.” In the same year, the group opened a New York office where designer members could display their one-of-a-kind outfits for wholesale or retail. One of these options was to extend the membership newsletter into a nationally distributed magazine-style product. The EBONY issue of 1953 contained an article on “The Ten Best-Dressed Negro Women in America,” as determined by the Association’s members.

In 1959, Wynn served as the General Chairman of NAFAD’s tenth-anniversary conference, which was held at New York’s Waldorf Astoria. The NAFADs honored “America’s Best Dressed Negro Women” during its 1962 conference, a list that featured educators, business women, and a member of the Maryland State Assembly. At the 1964 convention, the membership bestowed the organization’s prized “America’s Best Dressed Negro Woman” award on Josephine Baker, who was a customer of Valdes at the time.

NAFAD had chapters all across the country at one point, including Columbus, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Oakland, Beverly Hills, and Compton, California. NAFAD chapters also staged local fashion events to showcase the design work of its members and earn cash for student scholarships. The last known NAFAD branch is in Philadelphia, where a Black designer fashion exhibition was conducted in 2013. The chapter, however, has been dormant since then.

NAFAD is a great illustration of how Black talent at the time was finding inventive methods to get past White favoritism and racial inequity in the business it serves as a foundation for Black fashion talent today. The group was formed to assist African designers in overcoming the obstacles of White nepotism and to foster an atmosphere in which they could develop their entrepreneurial skills and collaborate.

By : Keren Beya

@kerebear_520