When I chose Sinners as the theme for this fashion show, I wasn’t drawn to the surface-level aesthetic of the 1930s. I wasn’t interested in recreating a period of clothing. I was drawn to the emotion, the duality, the tension between struggle and survival and the way it all still echoes in our lives today.
This show isn’t about fashion from the 1930s. It’s about the reality of the time: the oppression, the escape, the expression. It’s about our ancestors picking cotton as slaves, and how, generations later, we still find ourselves enslaved by a culture that tells us to pick cotton off a rack, chasing the newest, the freshest, the flyest look no matter the cost.
The title White Gold is deliberate. It refers not just to cotton, once the literal currency of oppression, but also to cocaine, a different kind of white gold that has fueled and fractured Black and Brown communities, yet simultaneously shaped art, music, fashion, and culture. There’s an uncomfortable but undeniable connection between exploitation and expression, struggle and style.
In the film Sinners, the characters drive through cotton fields on their way out of an oppressive town, chasing freedom. Their destination? A juke joint, a space of sound, sweat, release, and rebellion. That struck a nerve. I thought, this is what we’re creating: our own version of a juke joint, a gathering of community and creativity, a space to reflect, release, and be free... if just for one night.
Another moment in the film that moved me was the church, not just as a building, but as a symbol of devotion, tradition, and entrapment. One character is torn between his art and his upbringing, between family and freedom, a dilemma so many artists know well. That conflict, whether it’s God, music, or fashion we idolize, is something we wrestle with every day.
I had a cotton branch on my original Jone(s) vision board and I never found a place for it, until I saw Sinners. When that cotton field lit up on screen, I knew, "THIS IS IT". This was the story I wanted to tell, not just with fashion, but with sound, movement, and soul.
This show is a capsule, not of clothing, but of a moment. A moment where fashion meets a message. Where art meets history. Where we gather in our own juke joint to reflect, to celebrate, and to remember that even in sin, there is soul.
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