User:Chriscsims/Ruby Bailey

Ruby Bailey (1905 - 2003) was a Caribbean American fashion designer and artist. She is most known for her trailblazing for black female fashion designers in the early 1900s.

Early life

Ruby Bailey was born in the Bermuda Islands in 1905 and shortly moved to New York in 1912 with her mother, Louisa and her older sister Berel. Ruby and her family would settle into Harlem, one of the cultural mecca's for black creatives till this day. In her youth, Ruby created her mother and her sisters clothes. She took design classes at the New York Academy of Design and the Barnard School of Design. She was present for the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most influential time periods for artists in American history. Ruby was a famous socialite in Harlem, and would live there until her death in 2003.

Career

Bailey was a skilled seamstress and beader. She inherited these skills from her mother, who was a seamstress for a living. She was very flamboyant and outgoing. This combined with her talent and skill made her a regular in many local Harlem newspapers. She was featured regularly in the NY Amsterdam News, the New York Age, and many more black-owned newspapers in her time. Her works were famous for its extensively detailed patterns and designs primarily influenced by African and Native American culture. Her two most famous pieces of work are the "bugs" cocktail dress, and her "zebra-printed" jacket. She self-modeled her clothing. Bailey was aware of racism in the fashion industry at the time and was inspired by her Caribbean and African heritage by expressing Afrocentricity in her designs. Bailey was also known for her carefully handcrafted dolls which are now a permanent feature in the Museum of New York, and are on display in the "Core of New York" exhibit. Bailey was also a pioneer in the natural hair movement. Some of her dolls were adorned with curly hair to mimic the natural hair of black women to support the natural hair movement. She also wrote her biography, I Did It My Way.