We Weren’t Just Celebrating. We Were Remembering Ourselves.
- Kela Stubbs
- Jun 26
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 1
Let me start here: I don’t trust anybody who says fashion doesn’t matter.
That’s a cute opinion, until you’ve had to rearrange yourself to survive a work environment that couldn’t hold your truth. Until you’ve stood in the mirror before an interview wondering if your hair was going to cost you a paycheck. Until you’ve watched your entire aesthetic get duplicated, watered down, and rewarded; while you got passed over for bringing the real thing.
Fashion is personal. But for Black folks, it’s also political. Cultural. Strategic. It’s the language we mastered when we weren’t allowed to speak freely. It’s how we tell the truth in spaces where we’ve been taught to shrink. Getting dressed is the ritual. Being seen for who you really are? That’s the win.
Style as Reclamation
It’s July. Juneteenth passed weeks ago. But if you’re Black in America, you already know—we don’t stop feeling it just because the calendar flipped. Freedom’s not seasonal. And neither is the fight to be fully seen in our skin, our clothes, and our joy.
Because our freedom wasn’t handed to us on July 4th, and the outfits we wear on June 19th weren’t chosen to be trendy. They’re intentional. And just because the hashtags quiet down doesn’t mean the weight of what we carry suddenly lifts. Liberation doesn’t follow a schedule.
Juneteenth carries the kind of weight that gets inherited. You don’t just learn about it, you feel it. The delay. The erasure. The knowing that your people were technically “free,” but nobody told them. Nobody rushed to tell them. And somehow, we turned that into a holiday of presence. Of joy. Of making space for ourselves in broad daylight.
And when we show up? We show out. Because that’s how we’ve always done it. Our style has never been about decoration. It’s been declaration. A way to say, you didn’t break me. A way to walk through the world wearing everything they tried to strip from us—loud, layered, and lit up in color.
I’ve been sitting with something heavy and holy lately: the way we dress for Juneteenth. The pride in the prints, the deliberate fabrics, the red stitching, the beads, the locs laid with care. It’s spiritual. It’s political. It’s us.
Because the truth is, we weren’t always allowed to dress like this. Freedom didn’t come with a wardrobe. And when it did, it came late; two and a half years after everyone else got the memo. We dressed anyway. Found power in the presentation. Wore resistance in silk headwraps and tailored denim. Let color speak when our mouths had to stay shut.
And when I saw @lefthandglam’s Juneteenth photo fringe jacket blowing in the wind, flag in hand, head held high. I felt that whole legacy in a single image. Red, white, and blue, but done our way. Her way. The stance alone said: “This land didn’t free me. I freed myself.” I asked for her blessing to feature it here because it stopped me in my scroll. That’s what our style does when it’s rooted in truth. It makes you feel something.
The Power of Showing Up in Denim and Melanin
That weekend, Miami was thick with intention. I pulled up to the Shades of Melanin & Denim event hosted by the Black Professionals Network. But calling it a “networking event” feels off. That room was a portal. We weren’t there to perform. We weren’t there to pitch. We were there to be. Fully. Softly. Loudly. In every shade and fit imaginable.
I didn’t come to blend in. I showed up in alignment with who I am and who I’ve been becoming. The version of me that doesn’t shrink, doesn’t code-switch, and doesn’t apologize for taking up visual space.
Black professionals in denim, gold, linen, locs, braids, curls, sharp liners, glossy lips, boots, and heels that carried something real. The kind of styling that speaks before you say a word. Nothing was accidental. Everything had a purpose. We walked in dressed for the moment and fully aware of what that meant. The presence was thick. You could feel it in the posture, the eye contact, the way folks held themselves like they knew who they were. We didn’t whisper our brilliance in that room. We wore it.
There’s something sacred about the way Black folks show up when it’s time to celebrate freedom. The kind of freedom that lives in joy, fabric, silhouette, scent, sound. It’s in the details—how we move, how we greet each other, how the music hits different when we’re all in sync. The energy doesn’t ask to be felt. It enters the room like it knows why it came.
I sat down with folks whose outfits felt lived in. The conversations I had didn’t skim the surface. They were layered. Each look came with a backstory. Mitzi had just cut her locs and showed up with the kind of calm you only get when you’ve finally let go. Jendell’s outfit was duality her husband’s track as her theme song, bold prints paired with restraint. Charms brought quiet magic. Molly floated through in soft minimalism with a message. Lauren showed up in a body-hugging denim dress that whispered liberation. DJ Link gave us grounded energy with zero pretense. Warren kept it cool and classic, and still made space for a Mr. Sexy Legs moment (yes, he said it).
And the CEO? She wasn’t there for optics. She talked about what it meant to carve out space where Black professionals don’t have to hide their joy, their style, or their softness. “This space didn’t always exist,” she told me. “We created it because we needed it.” That stuck with me.
Denim was added to the dress code a few years ago to root it deeper. It carries history. Fieldwork and photoshoots. Cotton and defiance. Indigo-dyed, culture-coded. Denim holds memory. It stretches. It stays. She said she wanted folks to come dressed in fullness. And that’s exactly what happened.
The Next Day, We Kept Showing Up
The very next day, I was in West Palm Beach for the Juneteenth Unity x Black Excellence Festival (HBCU Edition) at the Meyer Amphitheater. Different city, different vibe, same depth.
This wasn’t some corporate “diversity event.” This was community. Vendors. Elders. Black-owned brands. Kids playing in the sun. And everybody was dressed. It was a festival that felt like a cookout, a college reunion, and a community offering all wrapped into one.
I wore my Black Barbie x Cross Colours shirt, a pleated skirt and knee high old skool Converse with my Afro on full display giving that nostalgic Blackness. I’ve been called a Black Barbie for years, sometimes with love, sometimes with shade. That day, it felt like ownership. Like I was reclaiming the parts of me that always knew how to shine, even when people tried to dim the light.
The festival felt like a family reunion mixed with homecoming. There was music, food, resources, conversation, and connection. People pulled up with pride. You could feel how deep it went—Black culture, Black education, Black business, Black healing. Everything about it said: we’re still here, still building, still shining.
This festival stood on something real. HBCU pride, community love, financial literacy, health awareness, and visibility for Black-owned businesses.They came to build. Nobody was trying to impress. This wasn’t surface. Folks were tapped in. The energy felt safe. Familiar in that deep-rooted kind of way. Like something got passed down. And I saw it again in the clothes. Printed headwraps. Kente cloth. Statement tees that didn’t whisper anything. Everyone there came styled by memory. Grandmothers, cousins, our younger selves, our future babies. The fashion was loud, soft, layered, and free.
Why Our Style Always Matters
There’s always this moment before I walk into a space where I pause just long enough to notice how my body feels inside the clothes I chose. We’ve always defined ourselves by rhythm, presence, and what we carry on our skin. Because let’s be real. Black people have always been the blueprint. Our style shaped music videos, magazine covers, sneaker culture, corporate dress codes, red carpets, and retail racks. What we create gets borrowed, but what we embody can’t be duplicated.
That’s why Juneteenth style hits different. It’s a mirror and a milestone. It asks: what does freedom look like when you wear it? What does it feel like to dress for alignment and not approval? What happens when we stop waiting for spaces to reflect us and start using our appearance to reflect ourselves?
You’re showing up. You’re showing out as your own damn ancestor’s wildest dream.
And That’s Why I Wrote the Book
If your closet doesn’t reflect the person you’ve become, it’s not your fault—but it’s time to fix that.
If you’ve been code-switching through your wardrobe, playing small to keep the peace, dressing for acceptance instead of for yourself, this is your moment to break out.
You don’t need a new job or a bigger platform to start showing up as your authentic self. You just need to start choosing clothes that tell the truth.
When we talk about freedom, we need to talk about the body. The wardrobe. The voice. Because if you’re still asking for permission to express yourself, then the work isn’t done. Fashion isn’t shallow, it’s ancestral. It’s healing. It’s how we remember who we are, and how we invite others to do the same. You don’t need a bigger budget. You need deeper alignment. Less performance. More presence.
It’s time to shift.
That’s why I wrote Fashion Freedom: Unlock the Power of Your Unique Style.I want you to start breaking out of the internalized programming that’s kept your closet safe, but not honest.
Step into your power one look at a time.
Your style isn’t waiting on trends. It’s waiting on you.
Written by: Kela Stubbs
Style & Identity Theorist
Style isn’t surfaced level. I study how it works, why it matters, and what it really reveals.
Comments