In a partnership with IMG, Spring Studios has become the scene for another fashion week and a consecutive partnership with Black In Fashion Council x IMG showroom. This is ultimately the location for 16 Black designers, one of which was NYFW newcomer Marrisa Wilson. The New Jersey native attended graduated from college in 2015 after studying fashion design with minors in fashion merchandising and product development. She started her namesake womenswear clothing brand Marrisa Wilson New York in 2016 having previously worked with J. Mendel, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein and DKNY. MWNY can be characterized by cool styling blended with funky textiles. “Every season, there’s a focus on bold color, bold prints, strong color usage, keep simple silhouettes and easy-to-wear,” Marrisa says.
Marrisa reflects on the inspirations for her work, and she recalls a specific issue of Teen Vogue from her youth that was seemingly insignificant, yet so impactful. “I remember there was one [issue] in particular and it had Jordan Wood and Chanel Iman on the cover. That really sang something to me — seeing girls that looked like me that were probably not that much older than me on the cover of a magazine,” she says. “Having visibility struck me as a young girl growing up. Hopefully I can be that for another girl because I didn’t really have that.”
Her fall 2021 collection, “To Be Black And Female,” is inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and social movements of the 1920s. “I saw a lot of parallels from what was happening in the 1920s to what is happening today, and this idea of dualism — it’s this identity that we as Black women have in society: how they view us versus how we view ourselves,” she says. The collection plays up the idea of the Roaring ‘20s, jazz, nightlife energy — it’s made for movement and dancing. “I’m hoping that by the time the collection is out for the fall we’ll be starting to go out. [I want to] have customers be comfortable [in clothing that’s] easy to throw on, dressed up or down,” she remarks.
There are two pieces to this collection, half of which is focused on color and print while the other half focuses on playing with texture. The prints take inspiration from cubism, an art movement from the 1920s that employs geometric shapes with pops of color. The color palette primarily draws on shades of primary colors: red, yellow and blue. “Yellow is a brand color, it’s a lot more prevalent in this collection. Yellow is my favorite color — I feel like it’s really bold and energetic. I always like to add some sort of yellow throughout the collection,” Wilson says. The second half of the collection serves as a breath from the color with its use of texture blocking as a means to draw interest despite the fact that it is all black. “Jeans by Marrisa Wilson New York is a collection inspired by taking denim and playing it up in interesting and innovative fabrics and materials, stripping it away from color,” she says.
For her fashion week debut, Wilson had achieved her most balanced aesthetic yet. She says, “This is definitely my most cohesive collection, most mature, and I kept it really tight. I would wear every single one of these pieces. I have a highly conceptual starting point but [over the years] I’ve developed a better idea of what people want to wear.”
As we look back on this past year and as we look to this inspired collection, we should continue to reassess what it means to be Black in America in the year 2021, and we cannot do so without exploring the hardships and dangers that continuously plague the Black community even a century later. These problems exist exponentially for Black women who are more than often neglected even when discussing oppression of minorities. “Black women fall through the cracks when we have those conversations about [the struggles of] women or [the struggles of] Black people.” The collection embodies the resurgence of Black culture and Black female empowerment amidst the demand for social justice and equity.
Marrisa Wilson New York FW 2021 is now available for pre-order on marrisawilsonny.com with shipping estimated to be August 2021.