LIVING SINGLE

THE WIZ (play) NEW

BLACK FASHION MUSEUMTBA

Brownstone Archives is researching costume design in Black American television, film, and theater. 


Brownstone Archives began in 2020 as a hobby-ist Instagram page dedicated to sharing screenshots and “fashion commentary” on the 1994 sitcom “Living Single”, created by Yvette Lee Bowser. The costumes are timeless, dilligent, and harken back to a time when costuming and styling in television was a vehicle through which black subcultures and independent designers were dispersed. 

Now, this archive works to: 
  • Highlight costume designers, costume workers, designers, archivists, and artisans who work at the intersection of storytelling and Black American fashion.
  • Examine how Black American subcultures and stylistic codes are communicated and disseminated globally via TV and movies; focusing primarily on the mid eighties through the late aughts.
  • Compile a visual and chronological timeline detailing the history of black costume design from the mid eighties through the late aughts.

Brownstone Archives is powered by Hermetic State and featured in DC-based magazine Demystification.
Geoffrey Holder’s costumes for Timbuktu! by Al Hirshield for Stagebill 1978