PYER MOSS DROPS NEWEST COLLECTION
On September 3rd, Pyer Moss put out an open casting call for its Collection 3 titled “Sister,” the third and final installment of the “American, Also.” trilogy. Open Studio is the brand’s way of involving its customers and community in the creative process of the Collection 3 campaign. Collaborators include models, stylists, set designers, hairstylists, and makeup artists just to name a few – all the necessary ingredients required to not just create editorial content, but content that portrays the brand’s ethos, showing the luxury in Black Liberation. Pyer Moss is no stranger to collaborations having worked with artists Jamilla Okubo, Johnny Nelson, and Aurora James of Brother Vellies for the iconic runway show at King’s Theatre in September 2019.
“‘Open Studio’ is our way of having our audience help create this art project I like to call Pyer Moss. It’s been a long, hard year and it was important for us to find a way to reconnect and reunite,” said Kerby Jean-Raymond, founder and creative director of Pyer Moss. “I am so grateful to the models, stylists, photographers, set designers, designers, and glam teams who helped us conduct ‘Open Studio 2’ and for helping us create history, welcome to the family. I can’t say enough how much I appreciate your continued support and collaboration. These images will serve as our official Collection 3 campaign. We look forward to showing the results in the coming days.”
Saturday, October 3rd, Pyer Moss dropped Collection 3, the collection shown in the Open Studio. The collection was partly inspired by the contributions of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the black woman who invented Rock ‘N’ Roll, which is where it got its name. In the spirit of collaboration, the collection uses artwork by recently exonerated artist Richard Phillips to commemorate Tharpe’s life.
The three-part collection series “American, Also.” was created to uncover and tell the stories of Black people’s contribution to popular American culture, stories that have been overlooked by mainstream American culture. The brand has become known for telling stories of the erased and deftly uses fashion, film, and fine art to reverse that erasure.
In 2018, Pyer Moss launched the thesis with the runway show “Cowboy,” which paid homage to those black men and women who served as labor hands and crafted the cowboy and rodeo culture. They followed that runway show with a 9-part documentary that uncovers stories of modern-day cowboys, pioneers, educators, and activists in NYC, Chicago, Compton, and Baltimore.
For the second installment of “American, Also.” named “Normal” the brand focused on telling stories of the normalcy in the black family experience. That installation was led with a runway show at the historic Weeksville Heritage Center followed by runway shows in Shanghai and Lagos. As if that wasn’t enough, the brand then followed up with the Director X led film “Seven Mothers.” A film that focuses on the family life of Jean-Raymond and the seven women who raised him after his mother passed away in 1994.
In addition to releasing the collection, Pyer Moss released its first in-house shoe, the Sculpt 1 this Saturday on pyermoss.com.
Photography by Micaiah Carter