August is Black Business Month, and September is fashion’s holy grail. Yet for Black designers, these two chapters rarely align. One is meant to honor the builders. The other, to celebrate the beautiful. But what happens when you’re expected to be both the architect and the aesthetic, often without the blueprint, funding or scaffolding to stand on?

We’re four years removed from the performative solidarity of 2020. Back then, retailers made pledges. The media ran listicles. Celebs posted black squares and wore Black brands like armor. And then? The algorithms moved on. The racks got restocked. And the pipeline—the one meant to usher Black designers from buzz to legacy—clogged with red tape, rising tariffs and real-world costs.

So we called up the very people still holding it down and hold

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