have been a mainstay of his shows since 2015, when he first assembled the Pyer Moss Tabernacle Drip Choir, so walking into the BoF Gala only to be greeted by a black gospel choir performing “to a room full of white people” understandably set him on edge.
“I did it, begrudgingly,” he writes. “But in reality all three of us have our own unique narratives and histories that warranted our own separate solo stages. The same solo stages that all the other white designers have received, for years.” Somehow, Jean-Raymond says, he was able to put all that aside and was convinced by friends to attend the BoF Gala—where things went from bad to worse.
Some of the other people of colour at the BoF Gala offended by the event include Aurora James, the Toronto-born founder of shoe brand Brother Vellies and Elaine Welteroth, former editor of. In one of a series of Instagram Stories posted from the event, Welteroth writes, “Inclusivity or Appropriation? The answers are clear when a black gospel choir is used out of context as a backdrop for a mostly white audience in Paris, all in the name of inclusion in fashion. FYI Black culture is not a trend.