Episode 202 | SHAKAILA FORBES-BELL ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FASHION PSYCHOLOGY + BLACK LIVES MATTER
In episode 202, Kestrel welcomes Fashion Psychologist Shakaila Forbes-Bell to the show. With her area of research focused on diversity in fashion and the importance of multicultural marketing, Shakaila was among the first people in the world to hold a Masters Degree in Psychology for Fashion Professionals at University of the Arts London: London College of Fashion, and she is also the founder of the platform Fashion Is Psychology.
“In the wake of the Black Lives Movement, when people are really starting to think about the lived experiences of Black people across all industries, we’re definitely going to start to see some major upheaval, and I’m quite excited about that.”
-Shakaila Forbes-Bell, Fashion Psychologist + Founder of Fashion Is Psychology
FASHION IS PSYCHOLOGY
On this week’s show, Shakaila shares more on what led her from wanting to be “the Black female Frasier” and a clinical psychologist, to carving out her own space in the psychology discipline at the intersections of fashion, representation, media, and marketing.
Her undergraduate research, which she called “The Hoodie Project”, explored how the murder of Trayvon Martin was treated, and that led her to dive deeper into the way that clothing can be weaponized, why representation matters on all levels across industries, and the important of understanding the nuances of how power plays out in society.
Additionally, Shakaila shares more on how she feels fashion should truly make people happy — and that brands need to be empathetic to their shoppers, to reflect on how their marketing really makes them feel, in order to be as inclusive as possible in their messaging.
The below thoughts, ideas + organizations were brought up in this chat:
“Fashion media in itself can be weaponized against people who don’t fit this mold of what an ideal standard of beauty is supposed to be.” -Shakaila
Aja Barber, Kestrel mentions how she has been reading Aja’s work on the way brands are responding “performatively” to Black Lives Matter
“The Relationship Between Fashion Psychology and Black Lives Matter”
“Testing the effect of consumer-model racial congruency on consumer behavior”, Shakaila’s published paper
“I’ve been thinking lately about the Black Lives Matter Movement, about psychological research — I have been thinking about who are conducting these studies and who are the participants, and are we able to generalize the results to everybody.” -Shakaila
“To think about an experiment like that in a kind of race blind way ignores the way that people have different experiences of power within society.” -Shakaila
“It takes around 66 days to change a habit.” -Shakaila
“Representation for representation’s sake is dead.” -Shakaila
“How can you make people feel happy? I think that should be one of the main things that fashion does — is to make people feel good. How can you make people feel good if you’re excluding them and you’re telling them that they’re not quite beautiful and they don’t quite fit into your narrative.” -Shakaila
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