At the end of each year, Charmaine Gooden asks her fashion journalism students how they felt about her class, and what always sticks with her is when Black students tell her that she motivated them.
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Charmaine Gooden, a professor of fashion journalism, has been focusing on the feedback she receives from Black students at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“They would always say to me, ‘I saw you and I went further,'” the professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) said. “And I told myself, I need to show you more, I need you to hold me to more standards.”
Born and raised in Jamaica, Gooden is keenly aware of the feelings of young black people who don’t see fashion as a part of their world: At the time she was deciding her life path, there weren’t many successful black models, photographers and other fashion creators featured in mainstream media.
“I never originally planned on taking up this profession,” she says.
So, prompted by feedback from students and renewed discussion about anti-Black racism following the killing of George Floyd, Gooden approached TMU journalism students in fall 2021 and asked if they would be willing to help create what is now the Black Fashion Canada Database.
Her mission is simple: to document the stories of the pioneering yet unknown black models, muses, designers, photographers and other talents who worked in fashion from the 1960s through the 1990s “so that young people know that there were people who came before them,” she says.
blackfashioncanada.ca, which launched this week, will feature profiles of each individual, detailing their early years, careers and how they broke barriers in the fashion world. Gooden and his team are preparing stories about legendary black models, actors and performers from across Canada, many of whom are still living and have agreed to be interviewed for the series, including Hondo Fleming, Lynda Carter, Dennis McLeod and Ethne Grimes de Vienne.
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Lynda Carter is among the Canadian fashion personalities celebrated in The Met’s new Black Fashion Canada database. Hans Lichtenberg/Courtesy
Gooden, a leading figure in the industry with a background in fashion journalism and public relations at outlets like Holt Renfrew and Chatelaine magazine, got the project off the ground by reaching out to potential subjects on Facebook.
“I started with people I know,” she says, “so far, the list is mostly fashion models, designers and creatives, but in the second round, I want to focus more on entrepreneurs – vintage shop owners, hairdressers, dressmakers and so on.”
Gooden pairs the students she interviews with her subjects. For Dalia Soufian, it was an opportunity to learn about people who helped shape the fashion world but aren’t often thought of as pioneers. A Montreal-based former model and actor, Fleming’s profile traces his rise in the fashion world from Quebec to Europe.
“I think he knew he had some influence, but I don’t think he knew the impact he had on the industry today, and I think that’s the great thing about this project,” she says. “It really highlights the impact these individuals had then and still have today on the industry, even if they’re not working in the industry now.”
Another call out went to Barbados-born hairstylist Adrienne Carew, who is based in Toronto and has been working there since the 1990s. Though she’s won multiple Canadian titles, been featured in magazines like Italian Vogue, and worked on fashion shows for Marc Jacob and Chanel, Carew knows the fashion industry can be a dangerous and toxic place for people like her.
“When you’re not being recognized, you feel left out,” he says. “Why me? You know you’re really good, but you want your talents to be recognized, you want your talents to be acknowledged.”
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Canadian model Hondo Fleming. Courtesy
Carew is also working to make the fashion industry a more inclusive and welcoming place for Black talent. For the past two seasons, he’s worked with Italian fashion nonprofit Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and Show Division, which produces fashion shows around the world, to train hair stylists in Milan how to properly style Black hair, a rare skill in a white-dominated industry. “We’re teaching a lot of stylists how to work with Black hair, why it’s important, how to do it right,” he explains.
For Carew, it’s an honor to be recognized alongside some of the fashion industry’s biggest names, many of whom he admires. But for Gooden, the database isn’t just about famous faces. “There are a lot of very famous people with big voices and big social media presences, and I admire them and they deserve it, but I wanted to unearth people who are less well-known,” she says.
And after decades in an industry that has long excluded people like her, creating something meaningful for the community is her top priority. “I find joy and joy in uplifting people who are worthy,” she says. “I really do.”
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