Street Etiquette’s Got Love for the Diversity of Black Fashion

A celebration of all things fly.

By Jamilah King Aug 18, 2011

The New York Times recently shined the spotlight on Street Etiquette, a popular fashion blog based in Brooklyn. Founders Joshua Kissi and Travis Gumps are no strangers to that spotlight, since their little patch of Internet real estate has already been featured in magazines from GQ to Complex, and in the London Times. The blog features photos of the spectrum of black style. But here they offer more on why it’s important to show that black street fashion can range from posh to eccentric. As Jon Caramanica writes:

Already they have wide reach: Street Etiquette receives 20,000 page views a day. The two men are the most prominent public faces of a new burst of black dandyism taking root in small retail outlets, niche fashion lines and thoughtful style blogs.

"There’s more than one cool now for black people," Mr. Gumbs said on a recent Tuesday at the Bergen Street studio, wearing a slight wisp of a goatee and dark glasses that sharpened his round face. "When we were growing up, it was just one kind of cool."

That was hip-hop, with its hegemonic style. But the men of Street Etiquette and their peers practice a deliberate elision of hip-hop style (except in the site’s early days, when the two were still shaking free of their Air Jordans). They even eschew the prim eccentricity of an Andre 3000, or the cosmopolitan flamboyance of Kanye West.

So here’s the love for the geeks, skaters, goths, punks, ballers, and the people with the creative vision to capture their genius.

We’re ending the day as often as possible by celebrating love. We welcome your ideas for posts. Send suggestions to [email protected], and be sure to put Celebrate Love in the subject line. You can send links to videos, graphics, photos, quotes, whatever. Or just chime in to the comments below and we’ll find you. Be sure to let us know you’ve got the rights to share any media you send.

To see other Love posts visit our Celebrate Love page.