project: iM2 - INVISIBLE MEN

pierre woods @ ny models, lawrence annunziata @ identities, brian peters @ ford

zeric @ red nyc, darrell walden @ request, omar kennedy @ next miami

Invisible men is a project i was working that celebrates the black male image in the fashion industry. Each guy was to have a strong portrait that glorified their diverse and their unique features. I never anticipated how difficult it would be for for me to be able to get these men and their representation to support a project like this.
One model tried to make me pay to include him in this project, another guy told me that it was a nice project for those guys who needed it,- he didn't, and many, many others just felt they were "too big" to be apart of this. ---SMH

I have never seen an effort in fashion to celebrate black men the same way they have done so with women such as Trace Magazine's Black Girls Rule issue or the Italian Vogue Black issue by Steven Miesel. After doing a video interview with Darrell walden for my blog (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiS6r4YdSyo) i was inspired to do this project - IM2 - Invisible Men.

Anytime a black male model books a job, he's usually one of few and they become representation of "black man" to the world and i think many of them don't realize how big that is. Without guys like Tyson Beckford, Will Lemay, Jason Olive ect. being the "black guys" back then ....we would have never thought it possible to be reflected today.

I grew up in the south where respect for the civil rights struggle is still felt. i am starting to really believe that it is impossible to get today's black people to come together to do anything for the common good of all. Are those days over? its really starting to feel that way.

I do want to say thank you to all the Guys and those who shown support through their agencies for a project like this. I might haveta scrap the project for now because it is proving to be too ambitious of an undertaking for me at this time. Hopefully one day the rest of the black male models and their agents and managers  will feel like I am on "that" level enough to believe in doing a project like this with me, because right now i'm an invisible man too.