Pratt Manhattan Gallery's 'Black Dress II: Homage' Is a Curatorial Spectacular

When Pratt Institute fashion professor Adrienne Jones debuted her Black Dress exhibit in 2014, she featured 10 contemporary Black designers. On opening night, Jones recalls having no idea what to expect. She anticipated between 100 to 150 guests, but there were closer to 500 attendees. That first iteration turned into the series that's done the necessary work of excavating American fashion history. Now, more than a decade later, she and co-curator Rachelle Etienne-Robinson revealed Black Dress II: Homage. It's a rendition of the show like never before.

"The first exhibit, due to space constraints and budget, we were only able to feature designers, and at that point, only able to feature 10 designers. In this one, we're not just looking at designers, but a lot of the people in the background that the average consumer has never heard of: journalists, models, jewelry designers, stylists behind the scenes, costume designers, and more" Jones tells L'OFFICIEL.

For the 2025 exhibit in New York City, Black Dress II: Homage, Jones orchestrated a curatorial spectacular with Etienne-Robinson, a Pratt fashion alum. Its fashion contents are expansive, spanning designers that are both historic and contemporary, from bridal to ready-to-wear. "Homage is the exhibit I originally wanted to do. Everything happens in its own time," Jones, the first Black woman to achieve tenured professor status at Pratt Institute, adds.

The exhibition, held at Pratt Manhattan Gallery (located at 144 West 14th Street), features designers like Patrick Kelly and Stephen Burrows, in addition to Oscar-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell. A dedicated in memoriam space pays homage to industry trailblazers who've passed away. There's a also Black beauty section, designed to be interactive, where guests can sit in a salon chair and learn about emerging and established hair and makeup artists. In the exhibit, there are also archival cosmetics products, including those used by legends like Josephine Baker, co-curator Etienne-Robinson explains.

Beyond celebrating Black designers and history-makers in fashion, Black Dress II: Homage also exposes New York's historical and economic ties to slave labor and cotton: "One of the greatest finds was knowing that the original New York Garment District started just a few a few blocks away from where the exhibit is being held now. And then, we were able to find information that cotton was shipped from the South to New York in order to have garments made for the enslaved, and then the garments were shipped back," Jones says. Finding that amid their research "was a big moment for" her and her co-curatorial team.

The opening night party in February felt like a family reunion, Jones says, and "all that was missing was potato salad." Guests included April Walker, Keli Goff (an avid collector of Patrick Kelly and Black designers), Kosibah founder Yemi Osunkoya, jeweler Lorraine West, and more.

"The idea was to pull out all the stops," Jones says, and that they did. Black Dress II: Homage is on view and open to the public at Pratt Manhattan Gallery until March 22, but its impact extends further as Jones' show continues to evolve, making more American fashion history accessible. There are more iterations of the Black Dress to come, with details listed on the exhibit's website and Pratt's.