Vision Statement
As a scholar and lecturer of color teaching for over eight years, I have carved out a niche that has expanded how we think about fashion, and I have worked to bridge fashion academia to the fashion industry (or, to put it another way, “bringing the classroom to the boardroom”).
Over the years, I have gained insight by working alongside leaders in the “C-Suite” and listening to the urgent concerns of fashion’s stakeholders (e.g. fashion designers, image-makers, trend analysts, senior fashion editors, Corporate Social Responsibility directors, Diversity and Inclusion leaders, model agency CEOs, fashion law professionals, fashion students), and, as a result, I found myself squarely in the “arena” of the business of fashion.
Also over the years, there has been growing demand in the industry for change, and it has been undeniable that individuals with a background in history and cultural awareness can be instrumental in this push for positive change. We have seen countless instances of fashion brands being “called out” for preventable mistakes that illuminate their “blind spots” (or general ambivalence), and this creates further harm to communities that have been marginalized and exploited.
Kimberly Jenkins giving a lecture that juxtaposes two historically relevant covers of Vogue, at a workshop in 2019 at Columbia College in Chicago. Photo credit: Jacqueline Wayne Guite
Use this space for a photo credit if needed
Business leaders, influencers and creatives stand to benefit from consultants who not only speak the language of business and art (respectively) but who can also offer preparatory, best practices through the teaching of fashion history and cultural insight. I am pleased to introduce you to Artis Solomon, an education consultancy that provides academic and creative solutions towards a more intelligent fashion system.
I created Artis Solomon as a way to bring the crucial lessons and resources that live inside the classroom to the wide arena of fashion, “connecting the dots” of common interests and concerns that exist between students, industry leaders and society in general. In a rapidly diversifying world where culture, politics and creative expression meet, Artis Solomon is prepared to guide you along the way, through critical knowledge and insight.
Kimberly Jenkins (sitting next to Elaine Welteroth) hosting a panel discussion, ‘Fashion, Culture & Justice: A NYFW Dialogue,’ Fall 2017.
The panel was conceptualized by Jenkins and designer Becca McCharen-Tran and was commemorated by The New School as ‘Dialogues that have shaped The New School for 100 years.’ Photo credit: Jonathan Grassi
A photograph of Solomon “Sol” Williamson, Kim’s great-great grandfather, 19th century (exact date unknown). The photograph conveys the importance of knowledge in her family.
The Story Behind the Name
The business name “Artis Solomon” is a combination of the founder’s paternal grandfather’s name, Artis, and her maternal great-great-grandfather’s name, Solomon “Sol” Williamson.
Her grandfather Artis Jenkins was illiterate all of his life, but was gifted with the skill of disassembling and reassembling cars by memory. Artis’s ability to teach Kim’s father the inner mechanics of how things operate inspired her father to become the first in his family to get a college education.
Her father, Cleo Jenkins, was the second African-American student in the history of The University of Texas at Austin to obtain a mechanical engineering degree. Although his daughter grew up with an inclination towards fashion, art and culture, it has similarly been Kim’s inspiration to understand how things work, applying her work as a fashion studies professor to show us how our past informs our present.
A photograph of Solomon “Sol” Williamson, Kim’s great-great grandfather, 19th century (exact date unknown). The photograph conveys the importance of knowledge in her family.
Who We Are
Kimberly M. Jenkins
FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER
Kim is Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies in the School of Fashion at Ryerson University, lecturing previously at Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute. Kim designed an elective course and exhibition entitled, Fashion and Race, sharing her insight at SXSW and Google HQ. Her expertise on fashion, race and cultural awareness has led to academic advising and research work for Gucci, The Lions modeling agency, Tommy Hilfiger, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Instagram. Kim holds an MA in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design. Learn more about her story and her work at her website.
Erin Colquhoun
Assistant to Kimberly M. Jenkins
Erin Colquhoun is an MA Fashion Candidate at Ryerson University, and received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Victoria with a focus in gender, sexuality, and social justice studies. While Erin’s current research examines identity and systems of power in fashion publishing, she is broadly passionate about integrating scholarship and industry. Erin also serves as Director of Operations and Managing Editor for Blank Magazine, a Toronto-based multimedia collective that aims to provoke critical dialogue in the fashion industry.
Kendall Laws
Project Assistant
Kendall is interested in the intersection of race, power, and aesthetics, and how a deeper understanding of this relationship can be leveraged to inform fashion industry practices. She hopes to facilitate resources and tools necessary to effect long-lasting change in the industry. She is an MBA candidate at Yale School of Management, and she received her B.S. in Economics and African American Studies from Harvard University. Kendall hails from Atlanta, Georgia, and she has a diverse range of experiences in retail, nonprofit, and consulting.
Some of the Experts in our Network
Photo by Jonathan M. Square
Jonathan M. Square
Assistant Professor of Black Visual Culture; Fellow in History of Art and Visual Culture at the Costume Institute at The Met
Jonathan Michael Square is the Assistant Professor of Black Visual Culture at Parsons School of Design. He is also currently serving as a fellow at the Costume Institute at the Met. A proponent of the power of social media as a platform for radical pedagogy, he founded and runs the digital humanities project Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom, which explores the intersection of fashion and slavery. He is working on a book manuscript on the same topic, tentatively titled Negro Cloth: How Slavery Birthed the Global Fashion Industry.
Specialization: Afro-Diasporic art, fashion, and visual culture
Photo by David Burstein
Darnell-Jamal Lisby
Fashion Historian and Assistant Curator for the Cleveland Museum of Art
Darnell-Jamal Lisby is a fashion historian and Assistant Curator of the Cleveland Museum of Art. In addition to his understanding of the vast fashion historical field, one concentration is the intersection between Blackness and fashion using an art-historical methodology. His curatorial prowess extends to institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum at FIT, and most recently at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where he helped curate the Willi Smith: Street Couture exhibition. He also writes for mainstream and scholarly publications and is expanding to various media platforms.
Specialization: General fashion studies, 20th and 21st century Fashion history, and the intersection of Blackness and the history of fashion from an art historical perspective
Photo by Eileen Costa
Elizabeth Way
Associate Curator, The Museum at FIT (MFIT)
Elizabeth Way is a fashion curator and historian. Her exhibitions for MFIT include, Global Fashion Capitals (2015), Black Fashion Designers (2016), Fabric In Fashion (2018), and Head to Toe (2021). Her personal research and publications focus on the intersection of African American culture and fashion. She edited the book Black Designers in American Fashion (2021) and has contributed to several edited volumes, exhibition books, and to Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. Way holds an M.A. in Costume Studies from New York University.
Specialization: Fashion history
Photo by Akash Rai
Dr. Ben Barry
Dean of Fashion, Parsons School of Design
Ben Barry (he/him) is a fashion educator, scholar, designer and academic leader who is devoted to equity, inclusion and social justice in fashion education and the fashion industry. He is Dean and Associate Professor of Equity and Inclusion in the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design. His teaching and research centers the intersectional fashion experiences of disabled, fat, trans and queer people and engages them in the design of clothing, fashion media and fashion systems. He holds an undergraduate degree in women and gender studies from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Management from Cambridge University.
Specialization: Disability justice, masculinities and fashion
Photo by Laura Beltrán-Rubio
Laura Beltrán-Rubio
PhD Candidate, The College of William and Mary
Laura Beltrán-Rubio specializes in the history of art and fashion in the early modern Spanish World. She is a doctoral candidate at the College of William and Mary and received her MA in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design. Her dissertation explores the adoption and adaptation of European fashions, their fusion with local Indigenous elements of dress, and their representation in portraits and pictures of types in the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Specialization: Latin American and Latinx fashion; legacy of colonialism in the fashion industry
Photo by Anu Lingala
Anu Lingala
Cultural Strategist
Anu Lingala is a trend forecaster, brand strategist, and founder of Revisionary: a space dedicated to reframing our aesthetic vision and decolonizing our aspirations by centering BIPOC-owned brands. She also helped launch Public Service: a platform and creative studio working to advance equity in imagemaking. Anu has always been passionate about applying sociocultural and historical analysis to contemporary industry contexts. She holds a BS in Apparel Design from Cornell University and an MA in History of Design from the Royal College of Art, where her dissertation examined cultural appropriation in fashion.
Specialization: Cultural appropriation in fashion & design, Fashion theory, Semiotics, Design thinking, Brand strategy
Photo by Susan E. Jean
Susan E. Jean
PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge Creative Director, SEMES
Susan E. Jean is a fashion researcher and designer committed to building representative, equitable and inclusive workplaces in the fashion industry. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge, where her research focuses on examining how intersectional inequalities are reproduced through creative working practices in the fashion industry. Susan is also the founder and designer for SEMES, a luxury brand grounded in the belief that style isn’t size-specific and offers clothing for women UK size 4–24. She holds a BDes in Fashion Design from Ryerson University and an MSc in Applied Psychology in Fashion from London College of Fashion.
Specialization: Intersectional equity in creative labour, size-inclusive design
Photo by Eileen Travell
Kai Toussaint Marcel
Research Assistant, The Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Kai Toussaint Marcel is a writer, researcher, and cultural historian whose work centers queering the body politics of fashionability, gender, race, and power. They are currently a member of the curatorial team and a Research Assistant at The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they provide support with exhibition and departmental research. Kai is also a Research and Curatorial Assistant at the digital humanities project Rendering Revolution. Prior to their work at the Met, they worked as a researcher for the Fashion and Race Database. Kai holds a BA in Art History and the Cultural History of Dress and Fashion from Sarah Lawrence College and Wadham College at the University of Oxford.
Specialization: History of Art and Fashion, Queer Theory and History, Postcolonialism, Body Politics
“Kim’s vision and dedication to fostering change have made her an important voice in advocating for a more intelligent fashion system. Her commitment to the critical work of dismantling racism and structural inequality within fashion is inspiring and essential.”
Andrew Bolton
Wendy Yu Curator in Charge
The Costume Institute