When FARFETCH asked Nataal to create a project celebrating US Black History Month based on the theme ‘Black style Icons’, our minds raced instantly to Michelle Elie. Her talents are bountiful – model, jewellery designer, stylist, collector and street style star – and her personality truly awesome, making her the perfect and most gracious of collaborators. So, we got to work by pairing her with emerging Austrian-Nigerian photographer David Uzochukwu, whose otherworldly visual style compliments Elie’s dare-devil dress sense. His idea was to shoot via video call and create an image that turned her into a modern-day deity: “I wanted this to be an ode to taking up space, to turning yourself into an icon,” he explains.

“Doing the Zoom shoot with David felt really fresh. We weren’t afraid to go for it to create the abstract shapes he had envisioned,” Elie tells me off the bat, again via video call. She’s on her phone and merrily zips me around her home as she speaks, her hair in a smart bob, her skin glowing, her outfit a sparky green and white chevron affair. She talks non-stop. She laughs often. The energy she exudes is beautifully infectious, even on a small screen. Something tells me this conversation is going to be a blast.

“For me it was important to collaborate with David because I understand the importance of recognition. I don’t want to be part of anything that is a token gesture toward diversity. I want to be part of real moments driven by real talent. David is a young Black photographer. I support his generation who are the ones who will be shaping the industry in the next 10 years.”

Her inability to mince her words also made Elie the ideal choice for the latest episode of Fashion Voices, the FARFETCH YouTube show hosted by Raven Smith. This time she tackled big ideas around ‘Black style icons’ with musician and visual artist Oyinda. “The word icon is used too freely. It’s not enough to wear clothes and get followers. It’s so much more than that. It’s a huge responsibility. It’s important to look at the history of fashion and understand what being a Black icon really means.”

Elie’s icons range from performers Missy Elliott and Grace Jones through to designers Patrick Kelly and Lamine Kouyaté of XULY.Bët. “Lamine’s such a genuine person and talented designer. What all the designers are doing now, he did back in the 1990s.” The seminal Malian designer gave Elie her break as a model in Paris in 1992. “I saw all the Black girls on the YSL catwalk - legends like Katoucha - and so decided I was going to make it no matter what. But I didn’t!” she recall with glee. “I went at the same time as Debra Shaw who’s 6ft and skinny and of course the designers loved her. While I am 5’8” and have hips and a bum. But I had a great time. And was about to go leave Paris when Andrew Dosunmu cast me for XULY.Bët. It was the first job Edward Enninful did for i-D magazine. And that shoot has just been chosen as the poster for FIT’s upcoming 1990s fashion exhibition.”

It’s being part of moments in fashion history such as this that makes Elie a contemporary icon in her own right, even though she would no doubt refute such a title. Her story is inspiring. Born in Haiti, the youngest of five children, the family moved to New York when she was eight. It’s here she started out as a model before stints in Paris and Miami, and then onto Cologne where she currently lives with her husband, art director Mike Meire, and their three sons. The eldest Zec has followed in her footsteps with his fashion brand Colrs, which has found acclaim at Arise Fashion Week in Lagos.

She credits her parents for instilling in her a can-do, fearless attitude, which she now teaches to her kids. “My dad became a taxi driver and my mum was a nurse’s aid. They came from nothing and achieved something in New York against all the odds,” she says.

“The Haitian language is full of proverbs - powerful ways of dealing with life’s hardships. So, my mother had a lot of sayings that I use to educate my kids. She’d say ‘It’s your eyes that are afraid of the work’ when we didn’t want to do housework. Or she’d say ‘Behind mountains are other mountains’ as an encouragement to keep conquering hurdles. She believed that if the opportunities aren’t there, then you create them.”

Her mother was also Elie’s first fashion inspiration. “She was so chic. She’d take us shopping to Saks and Bloomingdales and believed that you should always dress properly for the occasion – hair done, heels, lipstick and lots of jewellery. She also liked to travel to Côte d'Ivoire to buy gold jewellery. When she died 14 years ago, I had to bury her like a pharaoh!”

It’s little wonder then that Elie now has her own art jewellery line, Prim, and that the title of her recently concluded exhibition, ‘Life Doesn't Frighten Me. Michelle Elie Wears Comme des Garçons’ is a dedication to her mother’s wise words. The Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt show featured a gamut of Comme des Garçons looks straight from Elie’s wardrobe (she endearingly refers to her clothes as “the girls”) and representing 30 years of her personal dedication to collecting Rei Kawakubo’s most conceptual designs.

“I don’t have an extensive wardrobe, I have a selective wardrobe. I have to believe in the brand in order to invest in it and it’s important to wear things that empower me emotionally,” she tells me. “A Commes piece give me so much energy and excitement. And you can’t take a bad picture in one – all the angles deliver.”

It was after the Comme des Garçons retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that she had the idea to show her own beloved collection during Art Cologne 2018 so that local fashion students could come and experience the clothes up close. This caught the eye of the museum who last year hosted a wider curation of outfits modelled on ink black mannequins that were 3D printed to resemble Elie. This was an important element for curator Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, who wanted to make it clear that this was a show about Elie, rather than Commes. This is a Black woman who dares to be seen and dream, a Black woman now centre stage in the all too often white-washed walls of major institutions.

“I knew I wanted the mannequins to be a black girl but Mahret went further, she said ‘It has to be you’. These aren’t just clothes on mannequins, this show has substance and is making a political statement about inclusion.”

Next comes an exhibition catalogue in May, and after that Elie hopes to bring out an illustrated children’s book also based on her mother’s adages. And what becomes of the mannequins? “I’m keeping all the heads. Imagine a random mannequin ending up sex shop. I’m the Black girl with dildo in the window. Ha! No!”

Her unabashed dress sense has long made her an enduring street style phenomenon at the major fashion weeks despite the ever-growing hoards of influencers and photographers. While lockdown has put paid to the parade for the time being, Elie’s Instagram feed reveals that she’s still keeping it couture at home until the in real life shows begin again. In one snap she’s on the floor and in stitches at her inability to fit into a pair of thigh-grazing red PVC boots. This sums up Elie’s unadulterated dedication to the joys of fashion. She doesn’t need the cameras or attention in order to find an occasion to revel in dressing spectacularly.

“When the first film was made about the street style circus they called me a fashion peacock,” she says, guffawing heartily. “The industry makes judgements but I think fashion is democratic. I like to see people investing in and enjoying fashion. You know what, the more the merrier. I’m not a fashion snob. Fashion does a lot for people psychologically so that should be celebrated,” she adds, pausing. “So yes, I miss all that. I miss my community who come from all over the world to get together in four cities. I miss the gossip. And miss the creativity of the shows. I’m waiting for the reunion and the celebration of that thing we call fashion.”

Watch the FARFETCH Fashion Voices episode with Michelle Elie in collaboration with Nataal on YouTube here.

See Balmain’s Black Style Icons for US Black History Month.

Read our interview with Olivier Rousteing for US Black History Month.

Read our full interview with David Uzochukwu about his images in Nataal and Galerie Number 8’s Joyeux Store.

Words Helen Jennings

Visit Michelle Elie
Visit David Uzochukwu

Published on 06/02/2021