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Staten Island fashion comes to the forefront in a new exhibition at Snug Harbor
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Precious Fondren
Published Jul 28, 2023
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Michael McWeeney
By
Precious Fondren
Published Jul 28, 2023
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When people think about fashion in New York City, they tend to focus on the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, where city dwellers are known to walk the streets in the very best designer outfits. Staten Island seldom enters the conversation.
But a new exhibition aims to put the "forgotten borough" on the fashion map – strictly on its own terms.
“Staten Island Mode: Identity, Memory, Fashion,” opening on Saturday at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor, doesn't emphasize high-end fashion designers, as many other exhibitions do. Instead, the focus is on everyday people and their connection to dressing up. According to its planners, the show is about identifying why people dress the way they do, and how Staten Islanders blend local history and memories into their fashion choices.
The show is billed as the "first major contemporary fashion exhibition on Staten Island." Its curators, Jenna Rossi-Camus and Alexis Romano, grew up in Staten Island, but met while they were studying fashion history in the U.K.
The curators of "Staten Island Mode" focused on how the fashion choices of everyday people can reflect cultural heritage and personal memories.
Michael McWeeney
“We're very connected to our memories of growing up here," Rossi-Camus said. "But at the same time, having spent time abroad, we look back differently on where we came from, and also stereotypes of Staten Island in the media that we'd encountered by people from other places in the world. Instead of trying to uncover secret histories from the distant past, we wanted to focus on what Staten Island was like today.”
Romano says the heart of the show is the idea that the style choices of everyday people are important when discussing fashion, because clothing – no matter how normal or eccentric – can be closely tied to identity.
“We were trying to make these sort of ordinary stories extraordinary,” Romano said. “We think that's something that is specific to Staten Island, but also something that is a global idea.”
A portrait of Wanda Chambers, one of numerous Staten Islanders depicted in photographs by Michael McWeeney in "Staten Island Mode."
Michael McWeeney
In the exhibition’s main room, larger-than-life portraits of subjects the curators interviewed last summer, made by documentary photographer Michael McWeeney with an old-school film camera, are displayed like pages ripped from a magazine. Some people are adorned in traditional garb that reflects their cultural heritage, while others wear basic street clothes or colorful party attire.
When asked how others would know they are from Staten Island, most interviewees referred to the way they speak. And when they were asked to explain how they made fashion choices, one common thread that emerged among them was practicality.
“They dress for comfort," Rossi-Camus said. "They dress for an event. They dress for the day. They dress for the task at hand."
Tianni Graham, a native New Yorker and the principal archivist at fashion label Thom Browne, agreed.
“Staten Island's fashion sense is a result of everyday people working,” Graham said. “It's more of a casual, laid-back style. A lot of people that live in Staten Island work and commute to the city, so you have to be comfortable for the most part. That’s why workwear is very fundamental.”
Still, Romano says, a story one interviewee told about wearing a long white dress to the NYC Drag March stuck with her, and reminded her why she wanted to curate this exhibition.
“That person was harassed while on the Staten Island Ferry,” she said. “They decided to stand up for themselves and fought back. So the dress, while it's no longer worn, has become a symbol of empowerment.”
A room called "Noise" looks at past fashion trends and accessories in Staten Island, like this Wu Wear T-shirt owned by co-curator Alexis Romano.
Michael McWeeney
While most of "Staten Island Mode" focuses on the present moment, a room called "Noise" allows visitors to explore how some Staten Islanders dressed in the past.
“This is where we explore the various ways in which fashion relates to the idea of noise,” Romano said. “How do we make noise in our personal dressing, with our personal dressing choices?” Examples on view include embroidered prom dresses from the early 2000s, multicolored velvet tracksuits from Juicy Couture, and nostalgic T-shirts and sweaters from brands like Wu Wear, the clothing line by the legendary Staten Island rap group Wu-Tang Clan.
Meanwhile, a room dedicated to current Staten Island retailers brings visitors back to the present by including brands like Millie’s Couture, Country Mouse and Hey Viv.
“Everyone was really excited to be a part of this project,” Romano said. “They understood we were not displaying their clothes as though we were in a commercial setting, but rather a space that sort of is positioned between a showroom and a museum display.”
Attire is displayed in a variety of ways throughout the show.
“We are not just putting fashion on mannequins, as you see in a majority of fashion exhibitions,” Romano said. “We are hanging it literally from the ceiling, or laying it flat.”
The important takeaway in “Staten Island Mode,” she added, is the idea that people "dress to please themselves, whether that's dressing to the nines from top to bottom, or whether that's wearing a garment that was passed down from a parent or a grandparent that holds a special memory, or whether that's being really comfortable.”
“Staten Island Mode: Identity, Memory, Fashion” runs from July 29 through Dec 31, 2023.
Tagged
arts
fashion
staten island
Precious Fondren
Precious is a former WNYC & Gothamist culture reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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