Black Fashion Designers - The Museum at FIT, New York, 2016–2017

From December 2016 to May 2017, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York presented Black Fashion Designers , an exhibition exploring more than seven decades of fashion design by designers of African descent, from the 1950s to the present.

Andrew Ramroop, Creative Director at Maurice Sedwell, was featured among the exhibitors. The piece selected was a bespoke suit entirely hand cut and tailored by Andrew in his signature Delta style, characterised by an inverted V-shape hem, one of the distinctive design signatures that sets Maurice Sedwell apart from any other house on Savile Row.

The exhibition brought together 75 looks by 60 designers, spanning formal evening wear, menswear, couture, prints and textiles. It was one of the most significant examinations of Black contribution to fashion ever mounted in America, curated to address what the organisers described as a historic lack of diversity in fashion coverage.

To be included was to be placed in the company of the most significant Black designers working anywhere in the world. For Andrew, a Savile Row tailor who had spent decades quietly building one of Britain's most respected bespoke houses, it was a recognition that his work had a place not just in the history of British tailoring, but in the history of fashion itself.