Essence USA – August 2019

POWER PLAYERS

at $250 for a tank top and go as high

as $1,360 for a reversible parka. The

premium cost may have created a

barrier to entry for some, but those

who saw the bigger picture under-

stood the legacy Rihanna is building

in very White spaces. The artist is a

reminder that Black ingenuity should

be valued and our faces seen both on

and off the runway.

In particular, Black women are

famously loyal customers who will-

ingly drop a few coins on pieces we

love. In Nielsen’s 2017 report titled

African-American Women: Our Sci-

ence, Her Magic, 63 percent of Black

women agreed that they would pay

more for high-quality items. And with

Black spending power at $1.2 trillion

and projected to reach $1.5 trillion by

2022, there’s nothing but opportunity

for us to support our own.

Rihanna joins the likes of Virgil

Abloh, Olivier Rousteing and Shayne

Oliver—Black men who serve at the

helm of luxury fashion houses Louis

Vuitton, Balmain and Helmut Lang,

respectively. While each rose to

leadership posts in their own way, »

WHEN IT WAS announced that

Rihanna would be releasing her own

clothing line earlier this year, we had

no doubt the rollout would be as epic

as her two previous projects: Fenty

Beauty and Savage X Fenty, an

intimate-apparel line. The anticipa-

tion was just as high, if not higher, for

Fenty after she dropped a few sneak

peaks of her wearing the goods on

her Instagram account. There she

was, standing powerfully in a per-

fectly tailored tan pantsuit with a

fanny pack waist belt to match, or

rocking a denim dress with a pair of

the brand’s “Blockt Mask” sunglasses.

Of course, Rihanna surpassed our

expectations. The Fenty debut this

past May was expansive, and included

a pop-up store and interactive installa-

tions at The Webster in SoHo. This

debut also made the Bajan chart-

topper and entrepreneur the first

Black woman to have a label in part-

nership with the French fashion house

LVMH. Defined as “contemporary

luxury,” Fenty undoubtedly pushes the

boundaries on traditional ready-to-

wear. “Born in Paris, made in Italy and

France, Fenty lives online,” the website

says, and with good reason: The

Internet has made it much easier for

today’s consumer to purchase luxury

goods instantly.

Deloitte’s 2018 Global Powers of

Luxury Goods report found that mil-

lennial and Generation Z consumers

are responsible for the growth in

luxury sales over the past year,

with “younger shoppers seeking a

personalized shopping experience

that seamlessly integrates both online

and off-line platforms.” By adopting

e-commerce platforms, luxury brands

have seen a 22 percent boost in online

sales, with the apparel sector growing

17 percent, to an average of $716

spent per buyer. According to the U.S.

Luxury E-commerce Report from The

NPD Group, millennial women ages

25 to 34 are responsible for buying

two thirds of online luxury accesso-

ries, apparel and footwear.

Fenty’s ready-to-wear pieces start

RIHANNA

Fenty Creative Director

VIRGIL

ABLOH

Louis Vuitton Men’s

Wear Artistic Director

The fashion world is

finally seeing

how trendsetting people

like Rihanna and

Virgil Abloh are, and

giving them access.”

—CLAIRE SULMERS

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ESSENCE.COM I 89 I SEPTEMBER 2019