Ib Kamara Celebrates "Future, Community, Beauty, and Blackness" in Browns' "Family Affair"
London-based retailer Browns launched its “Family Affair” initiative back in April, and now it revisits the project with help from the Sierra Leone-born stylist Ib Kamara.
Kamara has guest-edited, styled, and shot the latest series of photos for Browns, creating imagery that celebrates “future, community, beauty, and Blackness.” The result of the series is stark yet stunning, as the only limit was the boundaries of the current pandemic. Despite this, Kamara captures “a portrait of the future as it should be,” as Browns says.
“For every contributor I shot, I wanted them to feel their most beautiful; their most comfortable and most importantly, to let them speak to the camera. After all, with all that we have collectively gone through, there are so many questions I can ask,” said Kamara, adding that, “This project felt like a community of people coming together to have a celebration, to reconnect and to find a middle ground for love and acceptance. To re-tie the beautiful bond we all have and share.”
Browns added, “When we launched ‘Family Affair’, our aim was to champion our creative communities in the times we need one another the most. Ib’s work is a true testament to this goal. It is thus timely that in the midst of this project’s execution, we witnessed the dawn of the largest civil rights movement in recent history;” referring to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The photography spotlights numerous young Black people in pieces from JW Anderson, Alexander McQueen, Jacquemus, Martine Rose, Off-White™, and even headpieces from Ib Kamara himself. Take a look at the fourth and final “Family Affair” series captured by Ib Karama for Browns in the gallery above, and find out more about the project on Browns’ website.
Report: Amanda T Lou
At the rise of Covid-19 many of us first questioned the timeline of fashion week and would we see the regular calendar continue - the question weighed over many of us for months! It was refreshing to see design houses and designers across the globe take advantage of the uncertainty and plow into production mode - thus my interest in Jerri Reid New York - The Black Designer based in Brooklyn New York wow’d instagram with his latest collection paying homage to the Black Is King film which debuted earlier this year in July. I was taken aback at quick of a turn round the young designer produced and released his well crafted designs reflecting some of the films most memorable moments.