The Fashion and Race Database x Holt Renfrew: Black History Month Partnership
Produced by Rachel Kinnard and Kimberly Jenkins
The Fashion and Race Database partnered with Canadian luxury retailer Holt Renfrew to commemorate Black History Month in 2021. The partnership included three original essays published on The Fashion and Race Database and a social media campaign published on Holt Renfrew’s channels that was edited by The Fashion and Race Database. Written by Dr. Jonathan Michael Square, the three essays were commissioned by The Fashion and Race Database for this special project. Dr. Square’s essays explored the history of problematic uses of images of Black people in the decorative arts and high fashion, in an effort to bring light to ongoing conversations about race, inclusion, and representation. The essays in this series include “The Problem with All Black Castings,” “Interrogating the Presence of Blackamoors in High Fashion and Decorative Arts,” and “Diana Vreeland’s Peculiar Relationship to Blackness.” The social media campaign was published on Holt Renfrew’s Instagram accounts and is archived in a landing page on their website titled, “Holt Renfrew Stories: Black History Month.”
Part 1: ‘Designing New Marketplaces for Systemic Change’ featured an acclaimed design duo and an ethnobotanist who are transforming retail in both concept and practice.
The Fashion and Race Database Conversation Series: Retail as a Portal
Produced by Rachel Kinnard and Kimberly Jenkins
The Fashion and Race Database Conversation Series launched in October 2020 with a three-part virtual series to explore how retail can empower us to produce and consume with positive, social impact and ignite systemic change. Professor Kimberly Jenkins was joined by figures in the fashion constellation who are leading through visionary thinking and doing. The series was produced by Rachel Kinnard and Kimberly Jenkins.
Part 1 (Oct 15 2020): ‘Designing New Marketplaces for Systemic Change’ featured an acclaimed design duo and an ethnobotanist who are transforming retail in both concept and practice.
Part 2 (Oct 22 2020): ‘Image-making as a Blueprint for Systemic Change’ featured two global artists who are transforming the industry in both beauty and retail campaigns.
Part 3 (Oct 29 2020): ‘The Way Forward to Systemic Change’ featured both an esteemed fashion critic and an acclaimed luxury retail entrepreneur who are broadening the horizons of fashion leadership.
The Fashion and Race Database
Relaunched with Project Management by Rachel Kinnard
The Fashion and Race Database is an online platform filled with tools that expand the narrative of fashion history and challenge misrepresentation within the fashion system. The Fashion and Race Database was founded by Kimberly M. Jenkins in 2017 and relaunched in 2020. Rachel Kinnard served as Project Manager for the first year after relaunch.
Clothing & _____
Hosted and Produced by Rachel Kinnard
Clothing & _____ is an independent conversation series hosted and produced by Rachel Kinnard. The 2017 series was held at Junior High Los Angeles, a non-profit community space and art gallery located in Hollywood, Ca. Each conversation focused on a specific topic. The 2017 programs were Clothing & Race, Clothing & Comedy, and Clothing & Size.
Brandi Finds God
Written and Directed by Gonzalo Cordova
Produced by Rachel Kinnard
“Brandi, a free-spirited woman stumbling home on a Sunday morning, finds herself attending service at a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal church. She befriends, Catrina, a teenage girl going through a cultural crisis of faith. Brandi becomes the devil on her shoulder, persuading her to follow her rebellious impulses. Catrina is torn between her ties to her community and the desire to join the outside, secular, Americanized world.” – Gonzalo Cordova
From Silk to Silicone: Considering Bras, Breasts, and Cosmetic Surgery (MA Thesis, 2013)
Written by Rachel Kinnard
In the twenty-first century, the distinction between dress and body is increasingly becoming more indistinguishable. A thorough analysis of the relationship between dress and cosmetic surgery is vital to the field of fashion studies. In western histories of dress, considerations of cosmetic surgery are typically found as a concluding chapter, presented to the reader as a commodity of post modernity and the future of body shaping. This thesis is an analysis of cosmetic surgery through the perspective of fashion studies in which I ask: what is the relationship between temporarily shaping the body through clothing and permanently shaping the body through cosmetic surgery? If bodies undergo cosmetic surgery procedures as a response to the experience of wearing fashionable clothing, can cosmetic surgery then be understood as a permanent form of dress?
BIAS Journal of Fashion Studies
Co Founded by Rachel Kinnard
BIAS is the student-run journal of the MA Fashion Studies Graduate Program at Parsons School of Design. Rachel is a Founding Editor. She co-founded the journal during her graduate studies at Parsons, 2011-2013.
The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook
Written by Allison Kelly, Nora Abousteit and BurdaStyle
Produced by Rachel Kinnard
The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook published in 2011 by Potter Craft.