Today’s Black Designers Who Are Moving American Fashion Forward
With over 10 years between them, designers LaQuan Smith, Sergio Hudson and Christopher John Rogers continue to rise in the American fashion industry talent pool. Each is contemporizing ready-to-wear for the next generation of fashion followers. They are among the top designers A-list celebrities turn to for red carpet, statement-making moments and beyond. For these three talents, staying power is a commitment to celebrating a love of the craft and sustaining their individual visions as they take their rightful place among the new leaders of American ready–to-wear.
Christopher John Rogers
When WWD first made notes on Christopher John Rogers in 2018, he was still moonlighting as an assistant designer with Diane Von Fürstenberg while preparing for the debut of his first collection. Like his counterparts Rogers already had a celebrity clientele — Tracee Ellis Ross, Lizzo and Tessa Thompson — before the real show began.
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WWD saw his star on the rise, headlining the young hopeful before the buzz hit. Almost as predicted, his spring 2019 show caught on, and a few months later, while still unfunded, he would be named the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund recipient.
From “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” the interview with Rogers that ran in WWD on Sept. 6, 2019, here is what the designer had to say about his process as fashion became entrenched in the conversation surrounding diversity.
“It’s basically encouraging people to take up space, to step into their them-ness,” he describes his aesthetic. “Like, whatever makes you you, all the subtle nuances.”
. . .”It’s just based on emotion,” he says of his approach. And he deadpans, “people that can actually walk, displaying the clothes as opposed to the person. What we’re about is a synergy between displaying the clothes and the person. So regardless of how people identify, whether gender wise, racially, whatever, we’re just casting people we love.”
Sergio Hudson
Sergio Hudson founded his namesake in 2016. The California designer’s A-list Hollywood clientele, inclusive of Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Amy Poehler, put him in fashion’s purview. When WWD spoke to Hudson in 2021, the moment that would change his brands trajectory had arrived. At the inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021, and one of fashion’s biggest moments, he took a risk, when he dressed former First Lady Michelle Obama in one of his signature tailored pantsuits at an event where they are never worn. But as WWD would note, style always wins the day.
“It’s undeniable that that changed the face of what my business looked like. . . .It was definitely a great moment. That year, we had dressed Mrs. Obama twice already, so it kind of had become normal for me. . . . I was not even expecting it to be the moment that it was, it was not planned. . . . Monochromatic fashion was just at the beginning of having its great resurgence and just to see her in that deep color [was great]. I always tell people it really wasn’t my clothes that made that moment, I feel like it was the way she felt in the clothes that made the moment. . . . It was the confidence and the comfort that she had that translated.”
LaQuan Smith
LaQuan Smith’s list of celebrities dressed is a long one that includes Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, and Rihanna, to name a few. He first appeared in WWD in 2013 as his body-conscious collections garnered fashions attention. Smith’s presence on the fashion stage has helped widen the lens on luxury. Here is what he told the authors when interviewed for WWD Black In Fashion: 100 Years of Style, Influence & Culture.
“It’s all about nightlife . . . [and] the celebration of the body . . . I love the thrill of getting dressed up, but also, before she even gets into that ballroom dance scene, what happened before? [It’s about] . . . being unapologetically glamorous. . . . I wanted to be able to expand that as a Black designer — and not just being pigeonholed as a Black designer or celebrity designer — but to really emphasize that I’m an American designer. It’s important that I’m able to expand those ideas of what American luxury looks like. It just happens to be that I’m Black.”
Stay tuned to WWD as we celebrate Black creatives in fashion in recognition of Black History Month 2025
“WWD Black In Fashion: 100 Years of Style, Influence and Culture,” released in 2024, is available now.
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