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Lois K. Alexander-Lane (born Lois Marie Kindle; 11 July 1916[1] - 29 September 2007) was an African American fashion designer and founded the Black Fashion Museum in 1979.

Early life

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Born Lois Marie Kindle in Little Rock, Arkansas on July 11, 1916. Lois graduated from Virginia’s Hampton Institute in 1938 before moving to Washington D.C. in the 1940s to work in the federal government. She started as a clerk stenographer for the war department and continued her career in government as a Planning and Community Development Officer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.[2] She also worked as a freelance photographer for black newspapers in the 1950s and was vice president of the Capital Press Club, an organization for black journalists.[3]

Lane was married three times. Her marriages to Maxwell Thomas and William Alexander ended in Divorce. Her third husband passed away in 1997. She had one daughter, Joyce Bailey from her second marriage.[4]

Education

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In 1963, Lane received her Master’s Degree at New York University in Retailing, Fashion and Merchandising. In response to being told by a professor that African Americans had not made contributions to the fashion world, she titled her thesis, “The Role of the Negro in Retailing in New York City from 1863 to the Present.” Her focus was the history of African Americans in fashion and retail. Her research led her to discover many previously unheard of African American dressmakers. It was this continued interest that led her to eventually founding the Black Fashion Museum.[5]

Career

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Lane opened two custom wear boutiques, The Needle Nook was opened in Washington D.C. and Lois K. Alexander & Co. in New York City.[6]

Lois K. Alexander Lane founded the Harlem Institute of Fashion in 1966. The educational institute offered free courses to students interested in dressmaking, millinery and tailoring. It also offered courses in English, math and African American History. The institute opened with three small rooms and 15 students. Similarly, in 1966, she founded the National Association of Milliners, Dressmakers and Tailors.[7] Lane was a charter member of the National Council of Negro Women.[8]

Lane authored the book, Blacks in the History of Fashion. The book was re-released in 1982 and contains many fashion photographs published by the Harlem Institute of Fashion, profiles of designers and a look at over 300 years of Black fashion.[9]

She was also a board member of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce.

Black Fashion Museum

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Expanding on her legacy, Lane founded The Black Fashion Museum in 1979 in Harlem on West 126th Street that now houses the William J. Clinton Foundation[10] as a way to dispel the myth that Black fashion designers are a newfound talent in the world of fashion instead of always existing within it. A National Endowment for the Arts grant for $20,000 allowed the museum to open and sponsored its seminars and workshops.[11] It exhibited clothing designed, sewn or worn by African Americans since the 19th century. Lane, heavily influenced by the life of Sojourner Truth, selected the location for The Black Fashion Museum because it was formerly the Sojourner Truth Home for Women and Girls and its recognition by the National Park Service as possibly being an Underground Railroad site.[12] The museum transitioned in 1988, acting as a mobile museum that traveled to schools, churches and civic organizations. The museum later relocated in 1996 to Washington DC to the site of Lane’s former boutique The Needle Nook.[13]

Lane discussed the importance of the museum, “The reason we have such a hard time is that we always begin with the current generation without knowing the investment of the past generations, and it is so sad. [...] Only recently have our designers had an identity. Previously, there were no tags, no labels, no signatures, and this has made the job of collecting difficult. The current fashion names [..] are receiving recognition now and are the future of the museum. But many of them were inspired by their grandmothers, and it is their grandmothers who worked long, hard and anonymously that I am looking for.”

The museum received a collection of dresses by Ann Lowe, the first African American to become a noted fashion designer, created for wealthy patrons such as the Rockefellers, Roosevelts and the DuPonts. Lowe designed the wedding dress of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.[14] The museum also received a velvet opera coat from former slave Lovenia Price and Geofrey Holder costumes from the Tony Award winning Broadway play, The Wiz.[15]

"The Black Fashion Museum collection was originally stored in a two-story row house on Vermont Avenue in Washington, D.C. The collection comprises more than 700 garments, 300 accessories, and 60 boxes of archival material collected by Alexander-Lane throughout her life. The research collection—one of the largest and rarest of its kind—includes a dress sewn by Rosa Parks shortly before her famous arrest in Montgomery, Ala.; a beige-patterned skirt worn by an enslaved child in Leesburg, Va.; the original Tin Man costume designed by Geoffrey Holder for the 1975 Broadway musical, The Wiz."[16] "Clothing and bonnets worn by slaves in the mid-1800s appear alongside an elaborately constructed opera cape made by a former slave. Other items include gowns by Ann Lowe, a pioneering African American designer whose patrons included the Rockefellers, the Du Ponts, the Vanderbilts, and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. 'The objects not only tell the story of black fashion,' Moresi says, 'but of the women and men who created them, wore them and held on to them for years.' "[17]

“In the process we discovered that few Americans — black or white — are aware of the contributions made by black Americans in the creative fields of fashion,” Alexander Lane told The Washington Post in 1981. “There is an oft-quoted myth that black people are ”new-found talent” in the fashion field and we want to change that.”[18]

Awards and recognition

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Lane received The Josephine Shaw Lowell Award in 1992 in recognition of her efforts to improve the lives of New York’s poorest residents.She was also honored with the Kobrand Corporation’s Tattinger Champagne Fashion Award, the New York Urban League’s Frederick Douglass Award and a certificate of recognition from the City Council of Detroit. Dollars and Sense, a business magazine, named Lane as one of 1985’s top 100 Business and Professional Women in the United States. Schomberg Center of New York City and the Design Center of Washington, DC held tributes to Lane and her contributions to the fashion industry in July and October of 1998.[19]

Death and legacy

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Lane passed away September 29, 2007 at 91 years old at the Magnolia Center nursing home in Lanham, MD. She had Alzheimer’s disease and liver cancer.[20] The Harlem Fashion Institute and Black Fashion Museum closed down before Lane’s death.The Black Fashion Museum collection was donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in June, 2007 by her daughter Joyce Bailey.[6]

References

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  1. ^ Bernstein, Adam (2007-10-27). "Lois Alexander Lane; Founder Of Harlem Institute of Fashion". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
  2. ^ "Celebrating a fashion icon: Lois K Alexander Lane". National Museums Liverpool. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  3. ^ Bernstein, Adam (2007-10-27). "Lois Alexander Lane; Founder Of Harlem Institute of Fashion". ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  4. ^ Bernstein, Adam (2007-10-27). "Lois Alexander Lane; Founder Of Harlem Institute of Fashion". ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  5. ^ "Celebrating a fashion icon: Lois K Alexander Lane". National Museums Liverpool. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  6. ^ "Celebrating a fashion icon: Lois K Alexander Lane". National Museums Liverpool. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  7. ^ Cass (2017-01-01). "The Harlem Black Fashion Museum Founded By Ms. Lois Alexander Lane". Harlem World Magazine. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  8. ^ Bernstein, Adam (2007-10-27). "Lois Alexander Lane; Founder Of Harlem Institute of Fashion". ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  9. ^ www.amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Blacks-African-Americans-History-Fashion/dp/9996376265. Retrieved 2020-12-21. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ^ "Black Fashion Museum collection finds a fine home with Smithsonian". The Washington Post. 2010-05-23. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-03-19.
  11. ^ "A Look at the Black Fashion Museum Collection and Designer Peter Davy - Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  12. ^ "Lois Alexander Lane born". African American Registry. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  13. ^ "A Look at the Black Fashion Museum Collection and Designer Peter Davy - Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  14. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102602221.html
  15. ^ https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/harlem-week-history-style-article-1.1417365
  16. ^ "Black Fashion Museum Collection Collections | National Museum of African American History and Culture". nmaahc.si.edu. Retrieved 2016-03-19.
  17. ^ "Black Fashion Museum Collection Collections | National Museum of African American History and Culture". nmaahc.si.edu. Retrieved 2016-03-19.
  18. ^ Bernstein, Adam (2007-10-27). "Lois Alexander Lane; Founder Of Harlem Institute of Fashion". ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  19. ^ "Lois Alexander Lane born". African American Registry. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  20. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102602221.html



Category:African-American people Category:African-American women Category:African-American history Category:New York University alumni

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