1983 was a major year for Willi Smith. That September, the New York City-based designer won the Coty American Fashion Critics Award for Womenswear—only the second Black designer to do so; when he was ...

CELEBRATING WILLI SMITH DAY During his 20-year career, Willi Smith (1948–1987) united fashion and American culture, marrying affordable, adaptable basics with avant-garde performance, film, art, and ...

The need for comfort in fashion is imperative, particularly these days. However, there was a time when apparel was marked solely by appeal, giving very little thought to ease of wear and long-term ...

On the surface, fashion and architecture may seem like disconnected worlds; however, the processes inherent to both regularly overlap. Designers are frequently faced with practical challenges to ...

ESSENCE Fashion House was not only a celebration of those making strides in fashion today and those on a path to carry on the torch well into the future, it was also an ode to the Black style pioneers ...

What’s a museum to do when it launches a show about a late genius of streetwear, and no one can walk up the street to see it? On March 13th, as the coronavirus swept through New York City, Cooper ...

The history of American sportswear is most often pegged to names like Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and Calvin Klein. Rarely do you hear the name Willi Smith, a designer who, at the peak of his career in ...

STREET-INSPIRED FASHION: The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is planning the first museum exhibition for the late pioneering American designer Willi Smith. Scheduled to open in March at the ...

One enters Cooper Hewitt’s exhibition “Willi Smith: Street Couture” through a small triangular space painted white. On the wall to the left is a timeline that begins in 1948, when Willi Smith, an ...