100 Years of Black Students and Style at Barnard

By Tomisin Fasosin ‘25

Weaving Black Barnard visualizes four Black Barnard alumnae: Zora Neale Hurston (BC

1928), Ntozake Shange (BC 1970), Sydnie L. Mosley (BC 2007), and Khepera Lyons-Clark

(BC 2024). These women are immortalized through dress forms, a three-dimensional

model of the human torso that tailors and designers use to fit, drape, and adjust

garments.

Tomisin Fasosin (BC 2025) designed these dress forms to evoke Zora’s framework of

“dreamweaving” and think about weaving as an embodied practice—one that can be

brought to life through the practice of style. Each dress form represents a Black creator

and alumna of Barnard who were able to weave “between the quotidian activities that

sustain Black community and their personal moments of creativity” (Kim F. Hall)

During her time at Barnard, Tomisin founded Black Style at Barnard which is a digital

archive of Black style on campus. Her methods of documenting have evolved from

simple photographs and developed into collaborative communities of Black creators on

campus. Weaving Black Barnard strives to be a continuation of that documentation of

Black style, highlighting Black creators of our past to inspire the students of Black

Barnard’s future.