After being the creative director of the streetwear brand Supreme for two fashion seasons, Tremaine Emory has decided to leave. He recently posted on Instagram that he left the brand known to be worn by white skaters for “systemic racism issues.”
In the posts (that started with a “White Fragily” book ad as a preamble), Emory describes the cancellation of a controversial collab between the brand and artist Arthur Jafa as one of the driving forces.
Arthur Jafa is a Black artist and filmmaker who is known to center Black resilience and power in his work. One sculpture that was a part of his “Live Evil” exhibition mimicked the famous photo of a free slave with lashing marks on his back.
like no disrespect to arthur jafa and tremaine but if “systemic racial issues” prevented people from walking around downtown with this on a t-shirt, we gotta call it a win pic.twitter.com/FnC0vG2aCp
— Jared Ray Johnson (@yungpanko) August 31, 2023
Allegedly, the collab was quietly canceled after one of the few black designers for Supreme expressed distaste over using lynch and slave imagery on apparel. Emory in his post felt undermined since he was the creative director.
“I told I was racially charged, emotional, and using the wrong forum by [bringing] up systemic racism in a meeting when I was asked if we should work with a black female artist whilst this Jafa project was secretly shutdown without anyone talking to me,” Emory states.
Tremaine Emory thought he can print black ppl getting lynched and tag a supreme logo on it pic.twitter.com/0IH8SpBXl1
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod (@big_business_) August 31, 2023
Supreme: We don’t think it’s in good taste for us to sell shirts depicting enslaved Black people being lynched
— Yamipucci (@nomynameisjus) August 31, 2023
Tremaine: they racist y’all https://t.co/669905OenA
Supreme has refuted Emory’s claim saying that the Jafa collab was not cancelled. So if you were dying for an XL T-shirt with a photo on the back depicting the gruesome reality of American enslavement, don’t worry it may be hitting Supreme stores for hundreds of white suburban teen boys to wait 12 hours in line for.
the idea of a bunch of white kids lining up to buy a t-shirt with the image of a black man being hung is kind of crazy tbh https://t.co/cnT3kpzEkk
— derek guy (@dieworkwear) August 31, 2023
“Well, I am ten toes on Supreme’s side because what do you mean you wanted to sell lynching t-shirts,” posted @jasebyjason on Twitter.
See, everyone is down to rage over a racist fashion brand (of which there are many) but as soon as you say “They didn’t want to put pictures of slaves on t-shirts”, you’re gonna lose some people.
Anyway, keep your eyes peeled on Grailed.
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