 Hello, my name is Darnell Jamal. I'm a fashion historian, as well as an education-coordinated here at Cooper Hewitt. I also served as the project curatorial assistant on the Willie Smith Street Couture exhibition that's open now that you can come to Cooper Hewitt if you're in New York and come see it now that Cooper Hewitt's Smithsonian Design Museum is open. And then also in accordance, I have a more, I don't know if I have a chiseled face, but I have a Caesar haircut, brown dark skin, as well as I'm wearing a snake skin blazer and a leather with a leather lapel, just to be even more specific, it a black shirt. But that's it. Thank you all so much out here for tuning in to Fashion Culture Futures and before we begin, I kind of want to take a moment just to thank everyone who has been a part of this and who has helped us get this together. A shout out to Alexandra, who I will be forever grateful for allowing me to join her on the Willie Smith Street Couture project in the online archive that I also welcome you all to visit to learn more about Willie Smith just in case you can't come out to Cooper Hewitt to see the exhibition. And shout out also to Julie Pasteur, who is also marvelous in helping to create, to tell Willie Smith's obscure story and his impact and design. I also want to thank the communications team, also the education team, Vaso and Kim and everyone who's behind the scenes, putting all of this together and making this come to life. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate this and we all just are just so elated to be here. With that said, as you noticed, the title of this program, Aesthetics of Freedom, Hypervisibility of Modest and Queer Fashions, these communities are the focus, but I want to use this moment to highlight how much in a broad sense, some commonality, there are some commonalities between the worlds, these worlds, while celebrating our differences. For this program, I plan to explore a variety of themes as it pertains to these two communities and their intersections within fashion from an industry and historical and contemporary perspective. Modest fashion and style birth from queer experiences have been historically excluded by social and political codes and misappropriated by the broader fashion system. Within this conversation, exploring ways these systemic pitfalls have been creatively combated, the themes of the discussion will move from spirituality, policing and censoring, misappropriation and tokenism, and liberation. And before we begin into the conversation, I'd like to introduce my two guests that you can see here, one of which is Shani. During her career as a photographer and creative director, Shani founded UMA Models after realizing the lack of diversity in modest clothing and representation in the fashion, in the fashion industry and media, despite the vast consumer market, the need for nakedness isolated many communities. Shani works in her career to make a safe space for women within the fashion industry, allowing them to pursue a career in fashion modeling without compromising personal or religious beliefs. And thank you so much, Shani, for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this today. I'm excited to be here. Thank you. Of course. And my other guest, I have the incredible artist, Brendan Fernandez, who worked with us also in the Willie Smith Street Quartet Project. He wrote a piece called Future Crossings for the Book. And also, we decided to integrate that also on the Willie Smith Community Online Archive, that again, that you can find online. Brendan Fernandez is an international artist, international recognized Canadian artist currently based in Chicago, working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. His projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protests and other forms of collective movement, and are rooted in collaboration and foster solidarity. Brendan is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program and a recipient of a Robert Roschenberg Fellowship. In 2010, he was shortlisted for the SOBE Art Award. And is the recipient of a prestigious 2017 Canada Council New Chapters Grant. He's also recipient of the Artadia Award, a Smithsonian Artists Research Fellowship, and a Lewis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. His projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, Getty Museum, the National Gallery Canada, among others. He's currently an artist and resident and assistant professor at Northwestern University, and is represented by the Monique Meloque Gallery. Hi, Brendan. Hello. Thank you so much. Super generous, and I'm so grateful for this conversation to be had. Thank you. Thank you both so much. This has been definitely a labor of love, but here we are. And I really want to kind of kick it off and going into spirituality. Here I want to guide the conversation to illuminate the role of spirituality and religious codes that inform dress. And I also want to dispel the misnomers about elements of style in each community, because I think that it's out there with queer experiences and particularly modesty, especially when you're talking about the Muslim experience. There's a lot of misnomers and misguided perspectives about both and what they bring to the table. And for you, Shani, unequivocally, when we're looking at modest fashion, particularly as it pertains to the Muslim experience of which you can speak towards, what do you find are those misnomers about fashion and this intersection, especially as it ties with spiritual faith? Yeah, so I think the biggest issue we have at the moment, within the media, within the industry, is the label that we have for these women that decide to model, calling them Muslim models, so that's the biggest problem. As we have a lot of other women of different faiths that model and their faiths are not put forward as the title of what they do. Instead, I've been trying to push, like my company has been trying to push for the last three years, the term modest model, rather than having a Muslim model, because modesty, there's obviously different levels to it. And one of those levels does encompass the Muslim fashion side of it. However, the models themselves shouldn't kind of be labelled as Muslim models in the industry. They should be able to have that faith as private, as well as it being recognised through dress, and that's how we do spiritually through our dress, recognise our faith, especially when it comes to wearing a head scarf. And also, I think one thing is, I think a lot of Muslims make this mistake, as well as non-Muslims, is that we own the head scarf and we own that item of fashion, which we don't. So we get a bit offended, I think. A lot of Muslims get offended when they see fashion shows or art calls or editorials where there's a model that's covering their hair and feels like that's some sort of appropriation on the kind of Muslim fashion. But we have to recognise that there's a certain way that we spiritually wear, there's a certain way that we religiously wear our head garments that differentiate between being a head covering and a religious head covering. So I think there's a lot of issues there that are not understood. I don't think the conversation's really been had. I feel a few people tried to have it, but the ones that matter, unfortunately, when it comes to having those displayed, that conversation never had about the religious levels of fashion and the differentiation between head coverings and, say, Islamic fashion. And that's interesting because you brought up the point that there is this kind of, like, people visually melt the two together when they're very different. And I'm curious to know what does respect look like for you in the fashion industry and for those who are similar experiences from a practical business standpoint as well as from a personal standpoint? I think asking questions is respectable. I think that's the best thing you can do. If you haven't done your research yourself as an artist, a designer, a director of a set, if you've not done the research yourself, then ask in the questions, ask in the, so when it comes to my clients, they come to me first of all, I'm the first point of call, and I often tell them what the models can and can't do. But that's not that they've asked more and more time more than I've told them what it is. So I think asking questions is really important and having genuine want to understand, you know, like what modest fashion is and the different levels of modest fashion. Because at the moment I'm talking just obviously from the Muslim point of view, but it's such a broad, it's such a broad, I'm so sorry, my words are just a bit skewed today. It's so broad, like modesty is really subjective to the individual. And we've not really defined what modest fashion is. I think that's the biggest issue that the mainstream industry has, because there's no definition. And they haven't asked what the definition is, they've kind of just run with a little bit of this, a little bit of that, when the people that are modest, they recognize the limits of modest fashion, and there is limits on it, even though it's quite broad, we've got, you know, certain ways of dressing that come under the bracket of being modest. And I think also within that space, like, you know, Islam modesty is seen as being oppressive. And that's a fear that we've built around, you know, a culture. And that is not, I think, and it's, you know, you have, her job is something that is a choice. It's not an oppression. And so that's one thing that's really important. But also the idea of it being fashion is also different. And in that space, this exhibition that was at the Cooper Hewitt gave a space to show that it cannot just be oppression. It shows it as something different. And there's a choice there. And I think that's a really important thing. Because in our greater culture, we create fears against each other. You know, like you don't understand my culture. So I don't know you. So I'm fearful of you. And it's like, don't fear me, know me, learn about me, learn about my culture. And that's exactly what you're saying, Shani. And so I'm so grateful for that. No, and I'm so glad that you brought that up. Back in 2018, I think it was we had like a big issue with Vogue reposting one of our models from a modest fashion show that we had in London. Reposting one of our models who actually wasn't in the show, she was just outside, absolutely stunning girl. And she had a headscarf on. And the comments were in the thousands of thousands of people asking Vogue, why have you got this woman on here? The statement of oppression. And yeah, so it was really like a lack of understanding from people. And like you said, a fear, definitely. So I think it's up to the people that are in the mainstream industry to kind of, if you're going to put it out there, then represent it correctly, as well as, as well as explain what it is instead of hiding it, you know, of course, yeah. I definitely think yeah, so. And again, grateful for what you're doing in your, in your world, because fashion is, is not easy. You're doing the work for us to make us visible, you know, like, whatever that means again, like, you know, like, Muslims, like, women, cis, queers, whatever, like, you're giving a visibility. And that's really important. So thank you. And also, for all of you out there, the exhibition that they're mentioning is Contemporary Muslim Fashion, which is also here on view at Cooper Hewitt. On the third floor. And I don't, on the top of my head, I do not know when it is closing, but it is closing soon. But if you're again in New York, within the next month, I encourage you to see it and actually travel from the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts entity out west. And it's interesting point that you brought up, Brendan, about, you know, the idea of fear that was instilled historically instilled to kind of create the perceptions around how we see these different intersections. And for Willie Smith, you know, he was also fighting against that as well, you know, being a black queer man in an industry in a world that didn't necessarily celebrate him in the way that he should have been. And so I, I'm, there was a piece, there was a section of your chapter that talks a little bit about him using spirituality as a way to kind of create his identity, create his aesthetic to almost kind of not necessarily assimilate, but also, but really to connect to people in a way that allowed him to stand out. You wrote, subverting the cliche of cross-border experience with humor may have been exactly what my mother had in mind with her own stylized border crossing. What we can take from these images is that self presentation changes our claim to space. Smith's spectacular Willie wear runway shows created space for individual expression, taking street fashions in church tailoring from Harlem to international runway. Smith's ethos created new spaces for the people who wore his collections. And so if you don't mind, I would love for you to elaborate specifically on your train of thought through that lens as pertains to your also your own life as a queer person. Definitely. So I think, you know, first and foremost, like Willie Smith for me is someone who made work in his vein of supporting hybridity, being many things, which I also identify with. But when you know, I think about fashion and what he did with fashion, I think about, you know, if you want to talk about narratives, my family, you know, we're fifth generation Kenyan-born Indians. So mix hybrid or very intersectional there. But like the idea of clothing was something that we didn't have privilege to have. And so my grandmother made us clothes. And in that space of making us clothes, we felt empowered. We felt like we were taking over the space of oppression. You know, we were living in a space of a I grew up in post colonial space. They and the game, whatever that means. But like my parents lived in apartheid, you know, they weren't allowed to be, you know, intersectional. So like clothing gave them power. And so maybe it looked like West, it was Westernized clothing. But within that, we were like, and I think I said this to like, in the essay that we were like the Von Trapp family, where like our, my grandmother made us dress the same, like we all looked like in a uniform. And a uniform is also a very political thing. And you know, like, I love wearing certain kinds of like clothing that makes me feel like I'm in a uniform because I can make it my making my own. But I can still be part of a community. And a community is really important to build a space of community, to build a space of inclusivity. And so when we talk about queerness, that's it. It's not about a gendered space. It's not about a sexual space for me. Queerness is about community. If you fit into my community, we break fractures. We break those ideas of what is not, we all have our struggles, like, you know, we all have our struggles, we're dealing with them. But if we can all be together and deal with them together, that's an important space. And so I think within fashion and what really did, I think a lot about those ideas of like being inclusive and making it like grow within ourselves. It's incredible. And I think that we'll get to the point of liberation towards the end. And I feel like for both of you, through fashion, that reclamation and liberation can is really kind of achieved in your own ways. But next, I really want to kind of move into policing and censoring and dig a bit into both of your knowledge in various ways. The broader fashion industry systemically limited the respective communities you all hail from, and also not only in an abstract way, but also regarding creative output and how they obviously are forms of discrimination and whatnot. And Shanie, you know, linking to the original conversation of, you know, what respect of Muslim bodies look like and not even Muslim bodies but modest, those who identify with the modest fashion category and realm. You know, how have you seen style or physical bodies policed in your work, you know, as an owner of a model management company? Yeah, so the policing is crazy. I think, you know what it is, it's because it's so new. I think the label of modest fashion is really new. And we have the, we had like the leading model being Halima Arden, who had nobody. So funny enough, one of the first models we ever have, it was a British girl, a girl from London actually called Maria Dressie. She was the first ever Muslim woman to wear a hijab to be featured in a campaign. So she was the first and then Halima Arden was American leads with fashion really. So because she was American in America, this blew up massively, more so than Maria Dresses. But because there wasn't anybody in front of Maria, I'm sorry, in front of Halima, there was no really way like of anything being paved. And because the industry, the modest fashion industry itself, and even if you look at just the Muslim part of that, the Muslim expenditure there is in the billions, we have the mainstream industry just want to be a part of it. So they just want to be a part of it meant that they just want to grab and do everything very quickly, rather than doing any research about what modest fashion is, or even trying to have a definition of what modest fashion is. And the mainstream industry could have actually done that. They could have actually defined what modest fashion is and then went off there, but they hadn't done that. And because they haven't done that, what they end up doing is it becomes policing what they think is modest fashion, and it goes completely against what modest fashion is. So for instance, there's a lot of women that don't want to, and the thing is modest fashion isn't exclusive for women. So we did use to represent men within the agency of the models, but we no longer do because that was overly policed, unfortunately, and men are deemed to be more modest than women anyway, so there wasn't really a platform for that. There wasn't people wanting to, excuse me, there wasn't really clients coming forward to hire male models through us, as they didn't see modesty linked with men. So that was one thing with like the men missing out, but we had a lot of men and we still do have a lot of men applying for the agency, because they want to be in the fashion industry, but they don't want to be over sexualized within that industry. And that's unfortunately something that happens to men. So they saw us as an option to go down the modest route, to be able to just model without being over sexualized on catwalks and so on and so forth. So unfortunately, I'm a former ballet dancer and within that space, body types, gender types, we get classified as well. So again, gracious that you're making these roles for us in this industry, but also I think about also the ideas of what does modesty mean, I remember crossing a US border and with all my papers and being told and asked by a person of color, what is the purpose of your beard? And I was like, there's no purpose, but the purpose was asking me if I was Muslim, again, the idea of fear. And I knew what the question was asking me and I said, there's no purpose, like I have a beard. The person ahead of me had a beard, but no one asked me, no one asked them what that purpose was. So it's this thing again, it's like, modesty is an important definition and word we're empowering, but also in that empowerment, why are we giving that space to the other, the one that will call us out? And that's something that I really think about. It's like, you can call me out, we're making spaces, I don't want to make that space sometimes, like give me that space. And so again, I'm grateful for what we do in our spaces, but it's complicated. Definitely. That's why we had to kind of let go of that, unfortunately, that kind of realm within the industry, the agency, the male modest fashion is just because it's just not recognized yet. It will be, I mean, God willing, it's going to come and it will be definitely and you're doing the work. They're not, they're not allowing that space. And that's the mainstream that's not allowing that space. We have the Muslim community that have lots of male modest fashion clothing that needs modeled. But because it's such a small community, they end up like kind of just using themselves or their friends and families and stuff like that. They don't actually tend to go to the agencies to kind of get models for that. So it's growing for the male side of things. But there's definitely like the police in there of that, you know, of saying, well, actually, men don't practice modesty or they're just modest anyway. So we don't really need them in the mainstream. And we really do it because we got things like we have the modest community, we can go over and look at the Sikhis, for instance, so the Sikh people, they practice modesty as well. And then we have Gucci in 2018, you know, having no runway where they've got non Sikh people wearing the turban. And this is a religious garment. It comes back to, you know, the misappropriation, the lack of understanding, the lack of care, the lack of care. They don't care about these people. Well, fashion is always appropriated. Well, it doesn't belong to anybody, right? But the thing is, when they do these things, they're directing it to these people. So they want their audience to be. So if you're going to have, if you're going to have a man in a turban, more than likely you're looking to aim your clothing at the community that wears turban, right? But then at the same time, you're not representing that community at at all in any way, shape, or form. You've not actually wore the turban properly. You still got your hair hanging out the back and so on and so forth. It just, it's like, what are you trying to do? What is it that's happening? You know, why? And I also, I wish to be thinking about Prada, that Prada did not have, you know, a person of color on their runway for like, how many years? And they, you know, it was called the blackouts, you know, like we had the blackout. People are not, it was like, you know, a certain kind of aesthetic. And again, when I say ballet, you know, I was not the perfect ballet dancer because I was not white enough, like, for lack of better words, you know, like, I had the physicality. I had everything else, but I was like, these standardizes, you know, and I think that's part of the problem that when we think about, you know, fashion, like, you know, and like just life in general as POCs, queerness breaks that down. We need to challenge that and say that as queers, we are making spaces for each other. And we are allowing us to be a part of a conversation, a dialogue, a live space. Like, that's what it's about. For me, that's what it is, you know. I don't want to, like, say, I'm calling out my fellow, like, you know, other dancers or models or people, but I'm trying to make a space where we break down the binaries and we think about, like, solidarity. Because if we don't have solidarity, like, what are we doing? Like, it's like, then we all just are still fighting against each other. Like, it's not a post-colonial space or a colonial space. It's the same space. I think a lot of people are too scared to speak up about it as well. And speak about, like, to speak about it because as soon as you start speaking up about it, it looks as if you're being rebellious and you're against that. Whereas what you're trying to do is just have your identity and own that and be allowed to be you in the space that you want to work in. And one thing that the fashion industry lacks are people of colour and diversity. Obviously, this is reason for this conversation. And it lacks, it doesn't lack the people of diversity as models and maybe designers or something like that. But no, designers definitely, as models. But what it does lack is the diversity, the people on the top, you know, the people that are actually calling the shots, the ones that are making the actual decisions, they have no clue. And then they don't have any, it's not diverse enough, basically. Yeah. And I was going to say, then it goes back to aesthetics and beauty and how we've decided what is beautiful and what is not beautiful. And for me, you know, there are moments where I've been told all the time that I'm not beautiful. And I'm not the aesthetics that they want. And that's something that is a big part of the conversation that we need to challenge. And that's a Western ideal of what is beauty and what you're doing by bringing people into this agency is challenging that. And again, for all of us, this is why we're here. It's a thing. And to say you're being told you're not beautiful is a vulnerable thing to say. And to be honest about that, it's difficult, you know, like it's complicated. So something that like kind of gets back to Donna's question about the police and what you're saying, Brendan, right now is that the idea of the traditional hijab, that was something that was obviously not seen as beautiful. So first of all, you're going to call the, you're going to call out the religion of the model that you're using in your campaign. Okay. And so this is a Muslim model. By doing that, what you're saying is you want all the other Muslims to know that you can buy from our brand, we cater to you. However, the way that you wear your headscarf religiously doesn't fit what we find beautiful. And then that's when you get the turbines, you get the no longer covering of the necks, but no longer covering of the bosom. And these are things that we have to do religiously when wearing a headscarf. So religiously wearing a headscarf, we have, it's in the Quran and told to us how we are supposed to wear our coverings. And it talks about the covering, covering your head in your bosom. This is no longer something that, this is something that the mainstream doesn't understand or the fashion industry, the fashion houses don't understand, haven't really looked into, but they don't find it beautiful. So they've changed it to fit their clothing. So then what you do there is you isolate the actual people that you really want to be a part of. And also you've got now this Muslim model, who you call Muslim, who's wearing your clothing that you've now labeled as modest clothing, posing in provocative positions, or having a headscarf on with perhaps inappropriate length of clothing as well, to go with that headscarf. So you're not catering to the audience that you're pretending to cater to. And I think there's a point that we're missing as well with class. Class also changes the way that you can dress, what you can afford, and how you'll dress. And part of the show is that there's a lot of Willie Smith made clothing, streetwear clothes, that I could just buy a pair of jeans and then rock it out. But also the exhibition with the Islamic show, it was glamorous. It was like it was couture. And that's not everyone's way of being. And I think that that's a big part to think about is like, what is our class? Because within this westernized space of neo-capitalism, we are thinking about things, but we also need to think about our class and our space. And how we make our spaces. And I'm privileged. I'm definitely privileged. I'm being brought into it. I've made myself privileged, and I will own that privilege. But I think we also need to still be self-reflexive. And I think for sure, that's a big space for sure. Exactly. We had Dr. Gavanna in, what was it, 2016, 2017, bring out a collection for the Muslim community, being at the headscarfs and the buyers. And like you said, class-wise, the average Muslim couldn't afford that. And we even had the campaign just recently with Nike. I'm here name-dropping and putting everyone under the bus. No, I love it. I love the name-dropping, more names. But also they're going to those spaces because they want to make money. They want to make money. And we think about the Emirates, we think about, I'll go to the Emirates and I'm also like Vogue in the Emirates, it's called Vogue. Arabia. And I'm like, who says Arabia? But that's inappropriate. But it's Vogue Arabia. To me, that seems like a space of creation that I'm like, we're still following these systems of power and hegemony that are trying to create how we understand the way we look, the way we move through spaces, like I mean physically moving, but we need to break those down. Like it's definitely, you know, and then again, the fear, the fear and the oppression. Yeah. And I think the oppression definitely comes from the fashion industry when it comes to the modest, the modest people. Just again, to touch on Dainel's point of the policing. So for instance, like I was saying, Nike 2019, we did a campaign with them. Obviously very excited to work with Nike at that point, you know, like, oh, we're working with Nike, we're doing it. And they were doing a swimsuit for modest women. But they banned it for hijab wearing women, right? So it was with their head covering. They could have done both. They could have like taken a head covering off and just did the modest, but they chose to do it just for the modest women. And that's perfectly fine. So now you're, you're just, you targeted the Muslim community by saying, we're going to make you a swimwear that you can wear. And this is at the time where we've got countries banning burqas and burqinis and all this kind of stuff like banning religious dress. So we're kind of excited as the Muslim community. And then we see the campaign, it comes out, where we're really excited. And I'm talking for the community. And then we see the price. And Nike decided to put the price of this swimsuit at, I think it was 600 US dollars for a swimsuit. And it was about, yeah, 500 pounds. And that's not affordable for it. It's not affordable for me. And I'm a grown woman. I'm a grown woman with a job. It just wasn't affordable. I mean, as good as it is, and I've heard the reviews on it, it's just like, where's the modesty in that? That's not modesty to us. Modesty needs to be throughout fashion. It's beyond clothing. And that's our, sorry, what's it called? The slogan for the agency is our model's modesty beyond fashion. Sorry, modesty beyond clothing. And that's what it is. It's beyond the clothing. It's the physical, the internal, the way we spend our money. It has to be modest for it to be part of that realm. Well, I think it's also a big thing of like also, you know, like to be empowered. The thing for me is, again, that's kind of my grandmother, how she dressed us, but it was an empowerment, you know, and, you know, gender for me is also part of the diversity, its queerness. And, you know, I want to wear a skirt. I want to wear a dress. I don't care about what people call me out. In the beginning, it was difficult. I felt like people would say, Brendan, you're sissy. You're like, and I'm like, at this point, when I wear a skirt, I feel so valued. I feel so strong. I will walk differently. And that's part of it. You know, and I think that's something as well, like, you know, why do we have these gendered clothing styles? Like, you know, or colors or things, you know, we have built binaries. And for me, I don't follow them. Like, you know, I'm not into it. Like, I will, you know, I'm very like who I am. You meet me and I will be wearing like something, wearing shorts right now that look like a skirt. But like, it doesn't matter to me, but why is that part of my culture? You know, so I just think about also the fractures that fashion can create through gender. I think that's quite interesting because we have my husband, for instance, wearing Islamic clothing, and that would be a phobe that he would wear. For people that are not aware what a phobe is, is a one piece garment for a male. And yeah, it's like literally goes over the head. You can have ones that zip up, but to look at it, you might say that was a dress that he was wearing. But it's a cultural coven. It's a religious garment. And there's not really a gender to it. So I kind of get that. It's quite strange, whereas a woman wouldn't wear a phobe. A Muslim wouldn't wear a phobe because we are within our religion kind of told that there are certain genders where this and certain genders where that. So where do we differ there? However, when we actually look at the coven, the West may call what the male coving is feminine coving, you know, like I said, the phobe, they might be like, why is that man wearing a dress? Or we have the Somali community and they have, oh, I'm going to butcher the word, but I'm sorry for anyone that Somali that's listening. They have a male type of skirt that they wear traditionally, religiously. I can't pronounce the word. So I'm really sorry, but people are going to be screaming at the screen and everything. But that again, the West will look at that as, you know, a skirt, but it's not as a cultural coven for where they wear in the world and how the fashion is sustainable for their lifestyle that they lived, the arid weather and so on and so forth. So yeah, like you wearing a skirt, Brendan, if that makes you feel liberated then why not? Of course. And yeah, I think also through like, you know, my cultural like heritage of being Indian, Kenyan, you know, like we have different kinds of clothing, but then it's also about the idea like, why does, you know, a Western kilt get given an allowance? But then why am I wearing something as a POC queer? And then I'm called a sissy or something else, you know, there's there those things that, you know, so I think there's a difference allowance in certain spaces. And also like, you know, how did certain like patterns or like, you know, in Scottish culture, like the paisley is an African Indian hybrid design. And how did that become called paisley? Because it's taken from some from our cultures, and then made into, you know, a culture that is Westernized paisley is a space in, in, you know, Scotland, you know, and so again, it's like, the idea of like, looking down on, on queerness on POCs and like, the idea of understanding what we are trying to do. And I think this is why again, it's important that we're in the space right now. And you both are, I mean, you both went right through the misappropriation segment and I love that. I appreciate that for the bottom of my heart and moving into the last, which started to get one or two Q&As I have one here. And I think this kind of settles in a little bit with, with my question also about how wanting to know how both of you are using your spaces to reclaim, reclaim really your power, reclaim power that you've, that, that, that was systemically kind of oppressed for obviously many generations. I'm curious, and I'm sure the audience would love to know a little bit more about both of your roles, you know, as an artist, as an owner of the agency, as well as here we have a question, you know, asking, well, I mean, where can I educate myself about modest fashion and what's acceptable? But I don't believe that that I don't, I don't feel like that should be put on you specifically. I feel also to answer that person's question, Google. I mean, like we have to start, you know, educating yourself is also to call, also doing the work, you know, but, but also in a way answering that question, I think that answering that question with my question, how are both of you using your work to reclaim that power, and reclaim power for others who are from your community in order to educate people about who you are? Yeah. I thought I could do that by starting a modest fashion agency. I'm not the first agency to be around for Muslim women. There was one that started in 2014 by a lady in New York. Unfortunately, I don't know what happened there with her continuing that. So perhaps she hit the hurdles that I have hit as well. And I'll say there's hurdles there because, you know, we're trying to pave this way and trying to lay something down. But when you're a small company or a small entity within this huge mainstream fashion industry, they often just take what you're doing and run with it. So I've had a lot of, you know, poaching of models, a lot of, you know, just copying of things that we're doing. And that's fine, you know, like originality is not really around anymore. So that's perfectly fine. But what is the problem is when it's going too fast for, for what it actually is without the definition, as I mentioned earlier on. So one thing that I have decided that I'm going to be doing, God willing, is actually changing the space that I'm working within. I no longer really want to have an agency, even though I feel my agency is very important in protecting women within this space. I feel like that's no longer really needed. It's more about having the definition of the space. And with the experience that I have, I would say in the modest fashion industry, one of the leaders who had the most experience being that we started the agency in 2017. And obviously, I've been running it and trying to work with everything, tweak things here and there and see, and downfalls, ups and downs of this kind of stuff. So I feel now it's really important to try and make a space, make a definition of what modest fashion is. And that's the broader modest fashion, because we do encompass Christian women within our agency, women with no religion, or don't really assign to religion, just women that do not want to be over sexualized when it comes to modeling, that do not want to take their clothes off, that want to be able to, you know, just have their personal beliefs and be safe in the space of modeling. So I think the best way that we can do that is to change what we're doing. We have to change and evolve with the times. We have to. The mainstream has to as well. And I would like to say they're slowly getting there, but they're really not. So I just feel like this needs to be the focus now. Instead of having the agency that I have be more around about trying to create a platform for modest fashion and define it. So yeah. Great. And even to that point, you know, creating spectrums, you know, and understanding the spectrums of what is, you know, and I think for both of the respective, you know, the queer in the modest fashion communities, like understanding there's a spectrum and researching it and really kind of taking purposeful action to understand those nuances to create those spaces for them so that people can feel seen and heard and not feel that sense of feel oppressed or be oppressed, not even feel, but actually be oppressed. And Brendan, I pose the same question to you as well. Yeah. And for me, you know, fashion, again, is empowerment. It's a space of understanding one's sense of body in a sense of like, you know, like, how do I give myself empowerment to walk a certain way, to believe a certain way? And I think that's why Willie Smith for me was like, he gave our community, he gave our community of people of color, the space to see ourselves in another place. And there's a weird moment when I was watching Pose and the kids on Pose were like, I'm going to mop Willie Smith from like, and that was something I remember, oh, okay, you're bringing it back because again, we needed to be there. We want to be there. And in that space, we, you know, Willie did it. He went there. He went there. We didn't need to mop the stores. Like, you know, we needed to like have a sense of being like, we are valuable. And so fashion for me gives me empowerment. And within that, like, you know, in my work as an artist, I will always work with designers and to make like, you know, uniforms as I call them, or because I want my dancers to also feel empowered. But I also think that the industry needs to change, of course. And within the change of the industry, you know, we need to have different diversity, you know, hybridity, queerness, you know, like body types, class, you know, visibility, like, you know, I want to feel visible. But my biggest thing is I want to feel invisible. I don't want someone to say like, Brendan, you are this person because of this. And that's why you're in this show or why you're doing this. I don't want people to say that about me. I want to be invisible. You know, right now I want to be heard or be seen. But my goal is to be invisible. Because I don't need to be doing this work all the time. Our work is not done. We're still working. And that's for me is how fashion can also change it. You know, like, so in my new pieces, I'm using camouflage within different textiles to change the way that we see people that or not see somebody. Because I'm really thinking about the space of empowerment. Incredible. And that's all the time we have for today. Thank you both so much. I really do appreciate you both just opening your hearts out and being just honest and raw and real and true and in this what I've what I hoped for. So I really appreciate you both of you just putting it out there on the table as it is and as it should be so that people can hear and listen and have this as a repository that they can always look back and always have that so that they always see that it's been said, you know, that it wasn't pushed under the rug. So I want to thank you both Brendan and Shandy. Shandy, I thank you. Thank you all so much and thank you all out there for tuning in. And next up, we will be in over there and the keynote with LaRouche. So stay tuned. Thank you. Thank you.