Visions of an Afrofuture

KHIRY. NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

Jameel Mohammed is a jewelry and fashion designer based in Brooklyn. He launched KHIRY, an Afrofuturist luxury brand, as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. A CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist, Mohammed creates sculptural jewelry pieces and handmade garments rooted in Black diasporic culture. His pieces have been worn by Serena Williams, Solange Knowles, Michelle Obama and many more. FORM spoke to Mohammed about self-determination, aspiration and his Afrofuturist vision.

Dani Yan: Your brand is grounded in your vision of an Afrofuturist society. How do your pieces contribute to the this vision? Where do you see your work fitting into the broader Afrofuturist picture?

JM: There is definitely an element of world-building, and I wonder how that coheres with the worlds other people are building. For me, Afrofuturism is not just about creating just my own vision, but one that is extruded to the scale of a society. It's about grappling with serious questions in a serious way about how we would actually get to that vision. Instead of just being like, “wouldn’t it be fabulous if we have flying cars that look like Afro picks?” it’s like, “how do we engage with the elements that are supposed to change society in a way to create that possibility for us?” How do we engage with the examples of Black history and have contemporary experiences which will be history to Black people in the future? How do we think about our experiences now and the experiences of our ancestors and use that as a series of case studies, of accumulated history, as a technology to get to that point in the future?

"HOW DO WE ENGAGE WITH THE EXAMPLES OF BLACK HISTORY AND HAVE CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCES WHICH WILL BE HISTORY TO BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE? HOW DO WE THINK ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCES NOW AND THE EXPERIENCES OF OUR ANCESTORS AND USE THAT AS A SERIES OF CASE STUDIES, OF ACCUMULATED HISTORY, AS A TECHNOLOGY TO GET TO THAT POINT IN THE FUTURE?"

I think what may differentiate my work, especially from other people creating like Black futurist images in fashion, is I really try to root it in grappling with serious issues and concerns in a way that doesn't mean that the product has to look like a serious grappling. The product is relatively resolved, even though sometimes my thinking is not always as resolved as the pieces are. But I try to imbue that in objects that people can take for granted as communicating a perspective and a world view. The subtle communications of a dress or a piece of jewelry—they can communicate how the wearer wants you to perceive them, but they also communicate the society and the values of that society. So I’m taking these objects that people maybe don’t look to and read in that serious way, as an opportunity to more sneakily influence their actions and the values that those perceptions are born out of.

DY: I see your work as being integral not only to the future, but to the present. You’ve talked about your belief in culture serving as a vector for change in the world. What are some of the changes that you want Khiry to be making? Have you seen any of these changes come to fruition?

JM: That’s a really important question, because how can you assess your progress on an issue without having a sense of the progress that you actually want to make? And so I think that evolved over time. And I can't really speak from a society-wide standpoint, because I occupy a specific experience. I can’t speak for the increased justice that I want for working class people in non-fashion spheres because I don’t live and operate and create change in those places.

But to answer your question, the greatest change that I want to see is greater Black self-determination. And that is an increasingly subtle ask. Because I’ve seen at least nominal increases in Black power in art, in fashion, in cultural spaces—or much more readily, I’ve seen huge increases in Black visibility, at least in all of these spaces. Visibility was once something that I thought was synonymous with power, but as the visibility has increased and the material circumstances have stayed the same for a lot of people, it’s clear that visibility is not what I was actually after. You can have increases in your ability to impact something, but if your power flows from someone else investing that power in you, do you have that power? Or are you just a vessel for the maintenance of someone else's power?

My ask has gotten increasingly clear over time, which is that I want Black people to be able to determine the kinds of lives that they want and to have no greater difficulty in attaining those lives than anyone else in society. That nuance has come as I've recognized that my experience actually cannot speak for the experiences of all Black people, and it cannot provide for the best vision for every Black life. I'm not here to create a situation where I give Black people everything that they ever needed. I know what I need as a Black person, I've had a wide variety of Black experiences, but it's not my goal to be the dictator of Black life. It's my goal that black people will be able to dictate their own lives. While I have seen progress on some of those other things as they were previously constructed, it feels like self determination is the real thing that is the hardest to come by. I don't know how to think about the progress made on that.

DY: I think it's impossible to quantify—self-determination is something that’s innately flexible and thus difficult to measure. I think self-determination is especially important for young creatives. You started your brand as an undergraduate and you’ve talked a lot about supporting other young Black creatives. You and your brand are still very young, but what are some of the ways that you think you or others can help elevate young Black creativity consistently and responsibly?

JM: As much as I speak about my experience and the ways that it might be instructive for other people, I try to always qualify that my experience is indicative of privilege and not indicative of the challenging and disruption of those models of privilege. Ivy League schools have, for hundreds of years, served to replicate power. So when I speak to other young Black people, I’m like: “Yo, this is the reality of the situation that I navigated, and here's how I navigated it. And here's how that maybe allowed me to be in the position that you look up to right now.” And that is not an unfraught thing. It has complications, which I always want to readily acknowledge when I’m advising anyone.

The other thing is why I think self-determination is a good goal. It’s the same kind of thing as the core premise of democracy—as Black people have greater ability to express their ideas about how society should look, they will create more possibility for more Black people to express those ideas. So for me, that's about counseling folks who are interested in fashion to use the resources they have. Because

I think the first hurdle you have to surmount is just feeling like your perspective is valid enough to insist upon at all. I didn’t develop that out of sheer grit and personality. It was like, “here’s an institution whose entire structure is meant to say you’re the future of culture.” That’s the first hurdle to jump. And I can be a part of that in someone’s story. Like, hey, pick up your iPhone and shoot a feature film. Figure out what makes you different and how to maximize those differences in a way that's generative to you from wherever you are. So that's the first thing. The second thing I always emphasize is maintaining as much control as possible. It's very difficult to assess people's incentives. If you are in a situation of desperation, it's very difficult to end up in a fair deal with someone not as desperate as you—that's it. So maintain control for as long as possible, such that you can really continue to advance your own perspective. In periods of my life, I would have readily sold away that control for a semblance of stability that I lacked. And I'm really glad, having arrived at this point in my career, that I couldn't make those deals, honestly. Because again, I would’ve accepted those deals at the time.

DY: I think control is something you always want but can be very difficult to maintain. As a creative, one thing that is especially hard to control is your consumer—who

"THE WAYS BLACK CULTURE HAS BEEN ASPIRATIONAL HAVE BEEN ABOUT ITS IMMENSE ATTAINABILITY AND MANIPULABILITY. I WANT IT TO BE THE MOST DESIRABLE AND THE LEAST ACCESSIBLE."

is consuming your product and how they’re consuming it. Your work is deeply tied to the Black experience, to Black history, present, and future. Many of the most visible and powerful Black women in the world have worn your pieces. I’ve seen some recent discourse online about white women carrying Telfar bags. You recently said that you love how brands don’t have singular client archetypes and can bring people together based on common ideas. How do you want your jewelry to be consumed by a non-Black audience?

JM: Reverently. With great care and attention to detail. But I can’t control that. I think that part of the initial position of the brand was: this is not streetwear. This is luxury goods that you’ll maybe be lucky enough to find in your local retailer. Part of the initial conceit of the brand was positioning Black culture as aspirational and unattainable. Because the ways Black culture has been aspirational have been about its immense attainability and manipulability. I want it to be the most desirable and the least accessible.

But also, white people have money and they’re able to access things they want to access. And I do grapple with this. What I’ve made peace with over time is that part of the brand is about establishing that relationship with certain clientele. If you have literally only bought Chanel high jewelry or Cartier high jewelry, it means something that you have been convinced that this brand that’s grappling seriously with racism and turning that into high jewelry is where you should make your investment. Not just your dollars today but what’s going to live on in your archive, what’s going to be preserved.

But at the same time, that cannot be the whole mission or the whole way that consumers interact with the brand. And that's not the only impact that I want to have in people's lives. So it's about increasingly finding different entry points into the brand, whether that be forthcoming T-shirts or you know $30,000 earrings or stickers or imagery—we’re probably going to do a magazine for the end of the year. So it's really about using aspiration. There are subtle ways you can engineer an experience of a brand for all the clients, for the entire market. But it’s also about creating those different entry points for different people who feel that sense of aspiration to the brand. How can they access it in different ways that feel just as special, that maybe even subvert the logic of “if you have the money then you should be able to buy the product”?

There's a lot of things that I've created that will be very expensive, and having the money is not going to be the only bar or whether or not I will sell it to you or lend it to you for a shoot. Let’s have a conversation about the themes of this dress and let me assess where you are in relation to the themes of this dress, and then we’ll see. I can send you an invoice for it.

PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy of KHIRY WRITING Dani Yan

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