FRD is pausing Substack for now.
I’m excited about this pivot, as we slow down and go inward to examine fashion and race in ways that feel authentic, healing, and informative.
Hi everyone,
It’s Kim here, founder of The Fashion and Race Database.
You’ve probably noticed that we’ve been relatively quiet over here on Substack. As we enter a new year, I’m looking to simplify and deepen the work that we do. Since we are primarily website-based when it comes to where we publish, and also we’d like to build closer connections to our community through hosted experiences, I’ve decided to pause our Substack account for awhile. Our paid subscription is now closed, but our archive of posts will remain here.
Simplifying how and where we publish while focusing on gatherings that cultivate connection (hello, reading clubs!) seems more comforting and inspiring to us than spreading ourselves thin, posting and “engaging” across countless platforms. While it’s impossible for us to join the analog movement as a necessarily online fashion academic platform, we’re coming as close to it as we can.
We’re taking things more slowly this year, with our heads down, writing and thinking about the politics and cultural nuances of fashion. This will manifest in the form of new learning guides (eBooks) coming very soon, posting to our social media account as a sort of blog each month, and inviting our community to join us for virtual and in-person workshops and retreats that explore loosening ourselves from the tentacles of capitalism and colonialism.
I’m so grateful for the platform that Substack provides for fellow writers and thinkers in our fashion space. After all, Substack is where we first started blogging five years ago, and it helped us articulate our point of view and share resources that we found to be critical.
As we grow, we’re navigating a turbulent world that is at an inflection point: it’s an opportunity to choose both rest and resistance. I’m excited about this pivot, as we slow down and go inward to examine fashion and race in ways that feel authentic, healing, and informative. I hope that you will join us, and you can look for new content and announcements on our website, our newsletter and our Instagram account.
Yours in service and solidarity,
Kim