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Black-Owned Fashion Brand Spotlight: Pyer Moss

Posted on June 16, 2020

Pyer Moss first showed up on our radar when Lena Waithe wore a custom suit from the brand to the 2019 Met Gala. The suit was both a high-fashion moment as well as an important representation of Queer Black Pride, with the names of queer Black figures written into the very pin stripes of the fabric and the faces of queer Black legends molded onto the buttons.

It was a hell of a look and a hell of a statement. The next time the brand caught our eye was when Lil Nas X showed up to the 2019 BET Awards as a brand new archetype: the Queer Black Cowboy:

Our jaws were sufficiently dropped.

Founded in 2013 by Haitian-American designer Kerby Jean-Raymond, Pyer Moss has made its name in part by melding Black politics, street styles, and high fashion. The brand’s biggest splash to date was it’s 2016 menswear collection in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement, which opened with a brutal video on police brutality (including the killing of Eric Garner) that left the audience gasping and in shock.

But Jean-Raymond’s work isn’t merely an attempt to shock and doesn’t always seem to bear political readings, even if so much of his work clearly celebrates Black life and culture. At the end of the day (and the runway), it’s about gorgeous, breezy, ultra-modern wearable styles with a distinctly Black point of view and aesthetic. Pyer Moss feels like what’s next for the world of fashion; beauty with a point and a meaning.