Robin Givhan

And I also think about

You know, those images, those incredible images from the civil rights era during the protests.

And you see these people.

I was so struck by images from the March on Washington.

They're all there in August.

Martin Luther King, you know, is like making his speech.

They're there around the reflecting pool.

And I remember once I looked up the weather for that day for a story that I was writing.

Because this was in August in Washington.

And it was hot.

And I was just looking at the way that people were dressed.

And a lot of it certainly had to do with just sort of the styles of the moment.

But they were also just dressed in this way that evoked such care and such...

and to use an overused word, intentionality.

And it just really spoke to the importance that they conferred on the moment, the importance of the way that they carried themselves in delivering their message.

I think today people would sort of lump it into, you know, quote-unquote respectability politics.

But at the time, it was not...

It was about gaining respect, but it was also about sort of announcing how much respect people have for themselves.

And I think that's a really, again, a powerful message that fashion can send.

You know, I think about, you know, during the summer of the Black Lives Matter protests surrounding George Floyd's murder.