March is Women’s History Month, and on March 8 we celebrate International Women’s Day. This is a month that we can celebrate each and every woman for the inherent struggle of being a woman and the phenomenal power that women possess everywhere in the faces of their struggles.
Up-and-coming designer Marrisa Wilson, having just come off her very first New York Fashion Week, has collaborated with Levi Strauss & Co. to release a special collaboration for International Women’s Day 2021. Wilson connected with Levi’s while working with the Fashion Scholarship Fund, and she has been working with them for the last couple of months. This will be a two-piece, app-exclusive collab with Levi’s. “Each season when I start with a collection, I start with a playlist, and [I was] inspired by ‘90s R&B — throwing it back to some of my old favorite hits Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott. Erykah Badu, early 2000s Alicia Keys,” Wilson says.
She has designed a pair of jeans as well as a trucker jacket with embroidered song titles from the playlist that inspired her and the embroidery itself is inspired by natural textured hair. “There’s a really pretty boucle embroidery that’s on the leg, and on the back of the jacket. The back yoke will say, ‘Respect is just the minimum.’, as an ode to Lauryn Hill.” Wilson’s AW21 collection titled ‘To Be Black and Female’ has a connection to this idea of intersectional feminism that ties in with the importance of celebrating International Women’s Day — being Black and female are two very complex systems of oppression that people have been trying to dismantle for millenniums.
With regards to fashion, Wilson thinks back to when she was younger searching through the ethnic hair section. “It was this one little aisle and there would be one row for natural hair, one row for textures and relaxers, one row for durags and then brushes. That’s really all you had for natural textured hair,” she recalls. “Maybe a year ago, I went into a Target and there was a full aisle of natural hair products for all different curls — a whole range of textures. The beauty industry is seeing the value in catering to a multicultural customer. Fashion is starting to do that, but the industry needs to understand that there is value in catering to us — putting more women of color in positions of leadership, not just sticking this collection on a Black model in a magazine but also understanding that there’s dollars and cents that go into this that make real change. When the money starts to come and they’re willing to invest — that’s when we can really be serious about the conversation.”
The collection debuts Monday, March 8 on the Levi’s app. Happy International Women’s Day to women everywhere. Remember in the great words of Lauryn Hill, “Respect is just the minimum.”