Who Has Worn Afrocentric Fashion?
The most significant expression of Afrocentricity outside of Africa existed in America during the 1960s and 1970s. The Black Panthers and other black nationalist and civil rights groups used clothing as a synthesis of protest and self-affirmation. Prototype items consisted of men’s berets, knitted tams, black leather jackets, black turtle-neck sweaters, Converse sneakers, and Afrocentric items including dashikis, various versions of Afro hairstyles, and to a lesser extent Nehru jackets, caftans, and djellabas for men. Women adopted tight black turtleneck sweaters, leather trousers, dark shades, Yoruba-style head wraps, batik wrap skirts, and African inspired jewelry. For both men and women, the latter items were Afrocentric; the former were incorporated into Afrocentricity because the constituency wore them and popularized them, and they became idiomatic of black protest. In 1962, Kwame Brathwaite and the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios in Harlem presented a fashion and cultural s
