When their beloved professor called for help with a project, Clark Atlanta University fashion design students Le’Nora Gray and Niambi Davenport didn’t hesitate to cut short their winter break. “To be honest, it was really all about our professor,” Gray said. “We didn’t really know too much about the project.” As it turns out, the project was life affirming for all three women. Fashion designer and Clark Atlanta senior lecturer, Cynthanie Sumpter, enlisted the students to help create a dress honoring fashion designers in Berlin, Germany, persecuted or killed during Kristallnacht, two days of Nazi terror known as the Night of Broken Glass. The 1930s black bias-cut dress Sumpter designed is made of kraft paper and incorporates 30 plexiglass pieces cut to look like shards of glass. The pieces bear the names of designers killed or businesses destroyed. The students embraced the project and the meaning behind it, which made their professor very, very proud. “They got it — that fashion is a lot more than just clothing. It is art, it can tell a story,” Sumpter said. The teacher was happy to let her students speak for themselves.
Q: Did you always know you wanted to be a fashion designer?
Gray: I knew before I even knew the word for fashion. My mother was into clothes. She didn't have access to big-time designers like Versace but watching her get dressed was like watching a movie.
Davenport: Honestly, I always knew I wanted to do something in fashion and when I saw "Project Runway," I said, "That's it!" My freshman year in college, I decided to teach myself to sew.
Q: Were you aware that the Nazis destroyed Berlin’s fashion industry?
Davenport: I had learned about the Nazis in school but I really didn't know about that or Kristallnacht. These designers competed with those in Paris and New York and then they were gone. Fashion is a statement and Hitler thought that statement was strong enough that he needed to eliminate it.
Gray: As we began working on the project, we learned more about the history and the symbolism behind what we were doing. It is really easy for us to gravitate to African-American designers because that is where we come from. It is important to step outside of your bubble and learn what everyone else goes through.
Q: You were asked to do the dress for a symposium at the Goethe-Zentrum/German Cultural Center Atlanta. How was it received?
Gray: There were so many people standing around the dress and they began to tell me about Kristallnacht, their history and how the dress made them feel. The dress almost brought them to tears. To see the names of the designers and businesses on the shards was so powerful, monumental. And to be honest, I think for someone from a different ethnic group to take on this project and do it with such passion and vigor excited them.
Q: How do you think the dress turned out?
Davenport: When we first got the assignment, we didn't understand what Prof. Sumpter was trying to do. When I saw the finished product, I was at a loss for words that something so simple as paper could become something so intricate and detailed and amazing. It was something beautiful coming out of something horrific. It is amazing to be a part of something that helps bring knowledge to something that happened so long ago that might not be known to many people or has been forgotten by some.
Q: Are you curious about the names of the designers printed on the plexiglass pieces?
Gray: I want to find out about them. I am quite sure that at least one of those designers was our age. They were full of life and had dreams and loved fashion. They wanted to do what we are doing now but their lives were stripped from them. We are blessed to be here, doing what we love to do.
“Fashioning a Nation: German Identity and Industry, 1914-1945” is an exhibition that explores the once influential German fashion industry and its demise under the Nazi regime. The Goethe-Zentrum/German Cultural Center Atlanta asked fashion designer and Clark Atlanta University professor Cynthanie Sumpter to contribute. She and two of her design students created a dress in memory of Jewish owners and employees of the fashion industry who were persecuted and killed. The exhibition is on display at the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust through May 1 and will then be on tour throughout the state. For more, visit www.holocaust.georgia.gov
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