By Alex Gryciuk
On a recent trip to San Francisco’s De Young Museum, I visited an amazing exhibit, Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love, which displayed the artwork of Patrick Kelly, an American high fashion designer. Unfortunately, while the designer remains one of the first openly gay fashion designers, the first black, American member of France’s prestigious Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter, and one of the first designers to have a significant number of black models walk the runway, many no longer remember his legacy. Born in 1954, Patrick Kelly was an exciting designer that radiated fun energy through his exciting designs that were most notable for buttons, big bows, lips, dice, and other visual extra pieces.
His iconic use of buttons remained heavily influenced by his childhood as his grandmother would replace lost buttons with new mismatched ones from her sewing basket. The innovations of Kelly’s grandmother inspired the creative repurpose of materials that would constantly feature in his designs through additions to garments or jewelry. Different from other designers, Kelly’s garments were also ready-to-wear creations or fast fashion. After growing up without many resources to create fashion and often borrowing a sewing machine, he would create cheap, creative garments that often were sewn with few stitches. He strove to create fashion for everyone with these ready-to-wear garments.
Another interesting part of his fashion was his logo: a black caricature or golliwog. Having grown up in the Jim Crow South, Kelly was no stranger to racism. However, instead of opposing racist caricatures, he often kept them as memorabilia in his workspace to bring awareness to racism or reframe the serious topic for conversation. Taking inspiration from the memorabilia in his workspace, he also reclaims the meaning of the caricature by rebranding it to represent his clothes and a part of his southern identity. Although the logo would spark much controversy and eventually lead his brand to not be sold in certain American stores, his choice in logo reveals an interesting way with which Patrick Kelly would express identity and social issues at the time.
Patrick Kelly, much like with his logo, represented his identity through fashion. He included allusions of slavery, racism, and caricatures in his clothing creations, to further address racism and represent his black, southern identity. To showcase his American roots, models walked the runway with cowboy hats and other references to American pop culture. Additionally, he often included pieces influenced by his grandmother, pop culture, and the LGBTQ+ community with colorful and extravagant accessories. In addition, his garments alluded to significant events that impacted his life. For example, he referenced Paris constantly, the city where he first struck success during a 1979 trip. In his designs, Patrick Kelly showcased a deep appreciation for Paris through many motifs of the Mona Lisa, the Louvre, and Eiffel tower.
Eventually, Kelly died in 1990 due to AIDS-related illnesses, soon after signing a $5 million production deal with Warnaco. Overall, Patrick Kelly was an incredible artist that drove innovation in the fashion industry with many creative designs, making him a truly revolutionary fashionista that constantly pushed the envelope creatively and socially.
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