Fashion Icon Bethann Hardison Gets Her Flowers in New Documentary
Bethann Hardison is one of New York fashion’s most iconic names. The fashion trailblazer can be credited for discovering hundreds of new faces, including her son Kadeem Hardison, who had an iconic turn on the television show “A Different World.”
Hardison is finally getting her flowers in Invisible Beauty, a new documentary focused on her more than five decades in fashion.
Invisible Beauty declares that Hardison is the “godmother of fashion,” per the Associated Press, “She has changed the way beauty is defined,” Tracee Ellis Ross said of Hardison.
Hardison broke ground as one of 10 Black models who participated in the 1973 “Battle of Versailles,” which pitted five French designers and five American designers against each other at the French landmark. The iconic event is marking its 50th anniversary this year.
Hardison is also celebrating her 80th birthday this year. In the film, she takes viewers back to her native Brooklyn, where she continues to work tirelessly for the preservation of Black people on and off the runway.
When the Associated Press asked Hardison about her legacy, she replied plainly: “Well, it isn’t complete yet. People throw that word around and say you’re a legend and you’re queen and all these things. I think the idea is to build things as you move through life. I don’t want to leave this Earth with somebody else sort of putting it together.”
“I want to go out of this Earth making sure that I produce the way I lived it. I have some sort of case of modesty. I don’t know how to sit there and blow smoke, you know.”
Invisible Beauty came about simply because the funds were available and Hardison and her team needed to utilize them.
“I had no choice because I had grant money, and you can sit on grant money for so long and not use it,” Hardison said. “I reached out to [film director] Frédéric [Tcheng], who I had gotten to know, and I told him that I needed to make this film now. At one point he just said, ‘OK, but the only way I would do it is if you agree to be the co-director.’”
“I was just a little afraid that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how to do it. I hadn’t had the experience, so to have someone you can ride shotgun with was great.”
The fashion icon also talked about the changing landscape of the beauty industry in terms of racial inclusivity.
“The corporate world has definitely taken its foot off the pedal with DEI executives being let go. They were trying to give up-and-coming emerging brands the help, the opportunity, to come into retail stores and make good deals for them. Those things are changing. That's going to be the problem that we’re going to see. I think the fashion model might be here to stay, but I have my foot on the clutch, just in case.”
Invisible Beauty hits theaters Sept. 29.
