A College of Texas at Arlington alumna was just lately named to Vogue Enterprise’ inaugural 100 Innovators list, which celebrates changemakers who are “challenging what it means to be successful in the worlds of style and beauty—often driving the scenes.”
Kimberly Jenkins (’08 BA, Anthropology) has crafted a one of a kind career for herself as a style historian. She focuses on why we use what we don through the lenses of politics, race, psychology and anthropology, successfully bridging style and academia.
“To be acknowledged by Vogue Organization on their initial ever 100 Innovators listing is these kinds of an honor,” she said. “I’m nonetheless pinching myself.”
Jenkins started and operates a consultancy enterprise, Artis Solomon, which delivers bespoke investigate and insight into vogue heritage and principle for providers that want to discover tutorial and inventive applications in their function in the style sector. The seeds of Artis Solomon have been planted in 2019 when Jenkins—then a manner professor at Parsons College of Design—pitched a novel notion to Gucci.
“They have been obtaining an situation with cultural insensitivity, and I enable them know that consulting with an academic historian would aid them discuss to further troubles and make far better business enterprise conclusions,” she mentioned. “And they took a likelihood on me.”
That would later on direct to a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, which allowed Jenkins to develop the common podcast The Invisible Seam, a Sign Award-nominated collection checking out and celebrating the often-overlooked contributions of Black Us citizens to style. Tommy Hilfiger has also supported her Style and Race Databases, a just one-of-a-sort understanding system that commenced as a very simple internet site wherever Jenkins compiled her trend historical past study.
“I basically arrived back to my previous UTA stomping grounds to get the web page commenced,” she said, recalling hrs used in the stacks at the Central Library throughout a summer crack from her master’s experiments at Parsons. “There was a person aisle the place I had all my manner reports from when I was a student—all these guides that to start with introduced me into what I am executing nowadays.”
Jenkins credits her time at UTA as being integral to her present good results. At UTA, she majored in cultural anthropology with a minimal in art history, and she reported her professors furnished her the versatility to condition her experiments all over her burgeoning curiosity in style from an tutorial standpoint, even as an undergraduate.
“UTA gave me the mental platform to assume by concerns of environmental justice and racial justice and establish all those strategies, particularly as they relate to manner,” she said. “Thanks to UTA, I ended up becoming sort of overqualified for graduate school, due to the fact I was by now undertaking so a lot area of interest do the job in the subject.”
Hunting to the future, Jenkins is focused on increasing the Manner and Race Database’s capabilities as a understanding platform—it at this time has subscribers from universities and museums all around the world—and launching a Style and Race Databases Masterclass, a cohort-centered course for any individual who needs to understand additional about the subject matter.
“It’s going to be mastering with out high stakes for all folks, no matter whether you are a university student or an industry insider or a remain-at-property mother,” Jenkins stated. “It’s for any individual who finds these topics interesting. I want to reach everyone.”
– Created by Amber Scott – Promoting, Messaging and Engagement
