Rihanna’s fashion house, Fenty, isn’t even six months old yet. And already it’s winning awards. Last night Rihanna accepted the Urban Luxe Award for Fenty at the Fashion Awards in London. She wore her own label, of course, and she received the honour from a legend, Janet Jackson.
As we know, Janet doesn’t step out often. And since she’s JANET JACKSON, she’s not about to show up and pass out trifling awards to trifling people who don’t deserve her time. Rihanna, clearly, is deserving of Ms Jackson’s time. After all, she is the first black woman to head up her own luxury fashion house under conglomerate LVMH. Rihanna, like her idol Janet, is a trailblazer. Like Janet, she is has uplifted Black woman, she has prioritised the Black female consumer, she has made Black women visible and viable as a target market for fashion and beauty. This award isn’t just about the clothes, then. It’s about symbolism, about what Rihanna represents, and an extension of what Janet has represented, an expansion of what Janet worked to achieve.
Rihanna was, understandably, thrilled to be recognised by one of her mentors. As she has said many times since thebeginning of her career:
“Janet Jackson, Destiny’s Child, Whitney Houston—they were the people who motivated me to do this, who I idolized and looked up to, and said I want to be like them. That started the dream, and it just went from there, and became a reality.”
That was back in 2010, two years after this photo was taken on Grammys weekend.
Think about what both of these women have been through and what they’ve come through since then. And think about what more both can do. Rihanna is now just 31 years old!
But, of course, any time Rihanna shows up, there’s always going to be that question: NEW ALBUM!?
She knows the Navy has been riding her ass for a long time on this one. And now it’s as certain as ever that there will be no new album in 2019. So…2020?
