Runway, Representation, and Why
Showing Up:
Runway, Representation, and Why This Still Matters
“When you show up, intention becomes a garment.”
The First Walk
I learned to walk before I knew where I was going. In college, a “colleague” pulled me into ballroom nights where the music and the categories multiplied the possibilities. Someone I knew from Virginia State invited me to a House of Sinclair meeting, I stood, I took a few steps, and they told me to come practice. Soon I was on a runway under hot lights, walking Virgin Runway, and I made it through. On my way back to my seat I heard the rarest applause, not just from the judges, but from a respected figure in the room Selvin Khan now know as MC Debra; in ballroom culture that kind of affirmation is church and crown at once. But I was also pledging at the time and skipped set that night (I did talk to my dean, first), I paid for that decision later, but I would make it once more. Ballroom taught me something college and Zeta did not, when you show up, intention becomes a garment. You ask yourself, what did I come to do?
Documentary Lessons: Paris Is Burning and About Face
“Ballroom forged space from nothing; supermodels negotiated value in a system that priced them and then tried to forget the bill.”
The lesson returned years later when I watched two films that still shape how I think about beauty and power. Paris Is Burning documents the New York ballroom scene, it shows how Black and Latin queer communities built arenas of excellence when the world refused them one, a record of style as survival, and language as architecture. About Face: Supermodels, Then and Now gathers the women whose faces trained the world’s eye, including Beverly Johnson and Bethann Hardison, and asks them to name the cost and craft of beauty across decades. The films speak to each other; ballroom forged space from nothing, supermodels negotiated value in a system that priced them and then tried to forget the bill.
Representation Has a Timeline
“Change often arrives as a box checked rather than a bar raised.”
Representation has a timeline, not a trend line. Donyale Luna became the first Black model on a Vogue cover in March 1966, the British edition, a radical image that reordered who could be called beautiful. Beverly Johnson’s August 1974 cover of American Vogue changed the U.S. market’s ideal, within a year, every major American designer had begun using Black models with new consistency. Bethann Hardison spent five decades building the scaffolding for that shift, from walking in the 1973 Battle of Versailles to founding agencies and coalitions, her 2023 documentary Invisible Beauty is a syllabus and a mirror. Progress is real, fatigue is also real, tokenism still lurks, a designer once asked Hardison for exactly one Black model out of thirty-five, change often arrives as a box checked rather than a bar raised.
The Industry Moves Again
The fashion industry is in another period of change. When creative directors leave or new ones take over, it doesn’t just affect design, it influences casting choices, who buyers take risks on, and who readers trust as fashion voices.
American fashion is rich and diverse, able to balance luxury and practicality, glamour and sportswear, denim and silk; but it needs the vision and confidence to showcase all of that range clearly, instead of chasing trends or copying European formulas.
On Body, Practice, and Showing Up
“Enthusiasm without accountability is a pretty dress with no lining.”
My own body has carried me through these shifts, through children and seasons, through times when thin looked like stress and times when strength felt like relief. The work now is not to perform comfort, it is to practice it, to choose a foundational color that anchors a thrifted, upcycled, or archival wardrobe, to repair before replacing, to dress for the life we actually lead instead of the feed we sometimes chase. Showing up is a craft; friendship is part of it; business is part of it; boundaries are part of it. Collaborations taught me that enthusiasm without accountability is a pretty dress with no lining, beautiful until it tears; when partners stop answering emails, that is the story, move forward with the work.
The Runway as Proof of Life
“Invest in the rooms that invest in you.”
I keep returning to the runway because it still feels alive. When a designer celebrates a timeless model like Veronica Webb or fits a tuxedo dress so perfectly that the woman wearing it looks unforgettable, we see true style meeting the moment. When Black designers question why celebrities fill the front rows at European shows but overlook American Black-owned fashion houses, it reminds us that fame and proximity are often confused with value. The answer is not anger, but discernment, support the spaces that support you and invite audiences who appreciate craftsmanship, not just attention.
The Meaning of Originality
I've come to understand that I haven’t always brought my whole self forward, and now I’m choosing to do so with clarity. Fashion month has finally come to a close this October, after what felt like one of the longest and most crowded seasons in recent years. From Paris to New York, the collections were ambitious yet uneven, and by the end even editors admitted the fatigue was real. Still, even though complete originality is rare, because most ideas or designs are inspired by something that came before, creativity still has meaning and value. It’s saying that fashion and art don’t need to be entirely new to matter; what gives them power is how we reinterpret and reimagine existing ideas in our own unique way. I want women to have a space to show up fully dressed for the lives they actually live, dinner with friends, school pickup, a gallery opening, a committee meeting, the rainy-day cape pulled from the back of the closet because it is time. I want my platforms to hold that, essays that honor history, guides that respect budgets, spotlights that archive the names that built this runway for us.
-Tempestt
Cited Sources (MLA Style)
About Face: Supermodels, Then and Now. Directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, HBO Documentary Films, 2012.
Invisible Beauty. Directed by Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng, 2023.
Paris Is Burning. Directed by Jennie Livingston, Off White Productions, 1990.
“Donyale Luna on the Cover of Vogue.” British Vogue, Mar. 1966.
Johnson, Beverly. “Cover.” Vogue, Aug. 1974.