Wrapping Up Black History Month and Fashion Month With a Full-Circle Fashion Moment

Let’s talk about fashion as language, and about the designers and models who shaped that vocabulary. As Black History Month and Fashion Month draw to a close, one particular wardrobe choice sent me down memory lane: Aurora James in a vintage Stephen Burrows piece.

Seeing his name instantly transported me back to New York Fashion Week, to one of those whirlwind seasons where the days blur together. At one event, I was escorted backstage to what felt like a private soiree tucked behind the main spectacle. And there they were: Stephen Burrows and the incomparable Pat Cleveland.

For those who understand fashion history, that pairing is electric. Burrows, the designer who helped define American glamour in the 1970s with his fluid silhouettes and signature lettuce hems. Cleveland, the model whose movement on the runway was as revolutionary as the clothes themselves, a woman who didn’t just wear fashion; she performed it.

In a city where celebrity encounters can start to feel routine, this felt different. This wasn’t just another backstage moment. It was a living legacy sitting right before my lens.

 

Black History Month and Fashion Month A Full-Circle Moment

That’s the thing about fashion history, it doesn’t stay confined to the decade it was born in. It resurfaces when someone understands its weight. So when Aurora James stepped out in vintage Stephen Burrows at the Fifteen Percent Pledge gala, the annual celebration of the organization she founded to champion economic equity for Black-owned businesses, it felt intentional. Closing out Black History Month and Fashion Month, the choice read like acknowledgment. A nod to a designer who helped carve out space for Black creativity on a global stage, and to the era, and the women like Pat Cleveland who brought that vision to life.

That day backstage, capturing Stephen Burrows and Pat Cleveland together felt surreal. These two icons were a direct line to a generation that carved space for Black designers and models in rooms that weren’t built for them. So when vintage Stephen Burrows reappeared on the gala carpet, it wasn’t just a fashion moment. It was a full-circle narrative: past and present in conversation, legacy acknowledged in real time.

As Black History Month closes and Fashion Month wraps its circuit, that image lingers for me: Aurora in Burrows. A reminder that style can be archival and political. That what we choose to wear can honor those who paved the runway long before us.

And there on my hard drive were two legends, and the understanding that history isn’t behind us. It’s alive, evolving, and occasionally, if you’re lucky, standing right in front of your lens.