Hazel Rodney Blackman

Hazel Rodney Blackman (1921–2014) was a Jamaican-born American fashion designer, quilter, and painter. She is best known for introducing African fabrics into American fashion in the 1960s and 1970s.

Early life and education Hazel Blackman was born Hazel Hyscinth Rodney in Kingston, Jamaica in 1921, to George and Alphasenia Rodney. She was the third of eleven children, including brothers Winston, Neville, Karl and sisters Ivy, Joyce, Winifred and Marcia. She grew up on Slipe Pen Road, in the city's Cross Roads Neighborhood. In that neighborhood, she often encountered Marcus Garvey and members of his Universal Negro Improvement Association, whose headquarters were at nearby Edelweiss Park. After she graduated, in 1946, she worked as a seamstress, private dressmaker, and sample maker on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. By the time she struck out on her own, in 1965 she had become an assistant designer.

In the 1960s Blackman's business partner Lionel Phillips brought fabric samples back from a trip to Africa. She started designing with these fabrics as a hobby, and in 1964 her clothing was featured in the New York State Pavilion of the 1964 World's Fair. Demand for her designs grew enough that in 1965 she and Phillips started a boutique, The Tree House, on East 147th Street in Manhattan. The boutique was an "instant hit", according to Ebony Magazine in 1966. Blackman was widely quoted as saying, "Let other designers go to Paris for inspiration, I'll take Africa." In 1965, the Chicago Defender newspaper called her "probably the only American fashion designer that specializes in African batik." In one interview in 1970, Blackman told a reporter that a "dress she designed from hand woven cloth geometrically designed in colors of green, gold and beige is the very last fabric to be had from Biafra."

In the late 1960s, the Denim Council, a trade group, noticed Blackman's unique African fabric designs and asked her to design new looks in denim. The resulting combination of imported fabrics and new denim fabrics became a signature part of her aesthetic. Blackman produced a variety of styles, from jumpsuits and bell-bottom pants to skirts, dresses, and jackets, made in this unique hybrid style. Blackman also sold clothing to other boutiques in New York City, as well as stores in Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Kansas City, Portland, and San Francisco.

As one reporter put it, Blackman's fashions at the Tree House "were later to get reams of publicity when done by other people."

In 1968, Blackman's designs were featured in the Harlem Cultural Festival's "Fashion '68" show at Mount Morris Park Harlem. In 1969, her designs were featured in the Schaefer brewing company's traveling "Show of Stars," a prominent fashion show whose theme that year was "fashion-power," showcasing African American designers.

Blackman's notable clients included Nina Simone, who reportedly enjoyed her evening gown designs, as well as Marjorie Harding, the prominent wife of New York City's first Black fire chief, Robert O. Lowery. Her designs were featured in Vogue, Glamour, Ebony, and The New Yorker, among other fashion publications.

Blackman told one reporter, "African fabrics defy the laws of design. Stripes are uneven and not equidistant from each other. It's enough to drive a designer absolutely mad. And yet, it fascinates me!" Decades later, she helped found the New York chapter of the Women of Color Quilters Network. Her quilt, "Unity of the Mind," which depicts Garvey and Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, is in the collection of Liberty Hall: The Legacy of Marcus Garvey, a museum in Kingston. Blackman also wrote an unpublished autobiography titled My Romance with Paint and Fabrics.