In tune with the elements

Drury University’s Black United Independent Collegiates decided to end Black History Month with their third annual fashion show. Drury University senior and show-runner, Jalen Shaw had partcipted in the first two shows and wanted to make sure that his final one was his gift to the program. He claimed it as his “swan song” and said “I cannot leave the program until it’s better.” 

The club decided on the theme Elements for the show and each model was given the opportunity to design four looks for each element: earth, water, fire and air. When entering the ballroom where the fashion show took place, the tables were all decorated based on the elements as well with handcrafted clouds and handpainted flames on cups designed by member Bri Campbell. 

The entire show took about a month of planning, Jalen said that he and the other models hardly did any research besides finding specific number and fact checking. Jalen said “All of the concepts came from our own experiences”. 

When planning the show Jalen encouraged the other models to be creative, in an interview with Jalen he said “the models could do whatever they wanted as long as it was within budget.” Besides Jalen Shaw, the other models consisted of Grant Booker, Serenity Sosa and Raven Haney. 

At the beginning of the show, before each element is introduced the MCs read a poem, the show beginning with “Won’t You Celebrate with Me” by Lucille Chapman. 

For the first element, earth, Jalen Shaw was decked out in a fabulous cowboy outfit outlining how, while 25% of cowboys in the 19th century were Black men, in popular media cowboys are almost never depicted as Black. Next, Grant Booker comes out in a look called Earthen Shakels. Serenity Sosa in a look called Black Disassociation which she described as “the layers representing folding into oneself for protection.” Raven Haney ends the earth section with a look that represents the educated black woman. 

The water section followed with Melvin Dixon’s poem “Heartbeat.” Jalen Shaw began the section with a look called Androgony deity Olokun, the look featured a mermaid print leggings and a low cut shirt showing his bare chest. The deity Shaw depicted is a water deity who is worshipped in Nigeria. Shaw wanted to show off the androgynous nature of the deity who did not follow the binary gender that modern America seems to be obsessed with. 

The next model Grant Booker emerged in a look he entitled Still Waters, which represented people who were forcibly taken from Africa and committed suicide to avoid enslavement while crossing the Middle Passage. Serenity Sosa comes out in a gorgeous gown with a sash that reads “Diversity Queen” and she called the look Black Isolation. The final look for the water element was Raven Haney’s The Athlete which represented the athletic expectations forced on Black people. 

The next element was fire, and instead of reading a poem outloud, they played the music video for a song called “I’m Not Racist” by Joyner Lucas, and the cong features a conversation between a white man weating a MAGA hat and Lucas arguing back and forth about how the white man does not understand what it is actually like to be a Black man in the United States. 

Jalen Shaw had a look called Ashes to Ashes that depicted Greenwood a neighborhood that was burned to the ground in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was reportedly the largest race riot and hate crimes in the United States. Grant Booker wearing a look called Open Fire, which depicted a Black man who was “no longer a threat”. Serenity Sosa had a look called The Jezebel which depicted the oversexualization of Black women especially in the workplace. With the final look Raven Haney emerges in her look called The Token. 

The final element, air begins with the poem “Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes. Jalen Shaw in his look The Fallen Angel depicts the unarmed Black man who begs “don’t shoot”. In this look Jalen touched specifically on toxic masculinity and how he wanted to blur those lines in these looks, he tells me that the white sweatshirt was actually “for women.” Grant Booker has his final look called Hot Air. Serenity Sosa in her final look Black Innocence. And maybe one of the most haunting looks was Raven Haney’s look The Missing Black Woman, pictured below the model, while she can’t say it audibly, her eyes ask “am I next”? 

Being his magnum opus at Drury University, I asked Jalen what he wanted people to takeaway from the show. He told me that he really wanted to educate people. He emphasized intersectionality and how all of these problems are structural and different facets of discrimination work together to erase black experiences and voices in and out of school.