Rian Phin
in conversation with Tina Rudasingwa
Rian Phin, Tina Rudasingwa, Malcolm-Aimé Musoni, CrwpitmanTina Rudasingwa: I wanted to begin by asking you more broad and general questions. Can you tell us some background about yourself?
Rian Phin: I’m Rian, and I’m a fashion consultant, but I used to be a fashion writer. I’ve always been interested in fashion and art. My goal in life is to make art and fashion accessible through the internet and for people to be able to shop in ways that are fulfilling for them.
You consider yourself an ecofeminist. Can you elaborate on that and the connection that you see between environmentalism and feminism, specifically Black feminism?
I used to be really against environmentalism. It felt like a cop-out for non-Black people, especially white people, to care about something intensely and not have to focus on what I felt were larger issues, like racism. It felt really painful to see people care about dolphins and bugs and not be able to empathize with Black experiences of trauma and pain and oppression directly in front of them. I was against it until I was in university and learned about how deeply that’s dishonoring the work of Black women globally, indigenous women, and how much work is done to save the environment by all women, white women included.
I learned about how the violence that women are subjugated to parallels the violence that the Earth is subjugated to. If I care about that, why wouldn’t I care about the environment? That led me to care about sustainability and green consciousness, and reproductive justice and how that relates to environmental justice. I would be at work and realize that’s a work environment, which means it’s environmentalism. Environmentalism is everything and everywhere, and it’s connected to any marginalized identity you can think of. Marginalized people are always the ones most affected by environmental and ecological destruction. It’s a huge part of how I relate to fashion, how I relate to my identity, how I relate to Blackness, womanhood, gender non-conforming identities, queerness, etc.
What do you see with the connection between what you just said and also what you do with fashion writing and criticism?
I try to connect environmentalism to marginalized identities, to fashion. I’m trying to preach about environmentalism through something that I know a lot of people are interested in, which is fashion. And I’m trying to hopefully appeal to marginalized people because of the massive impact ecological destruction has on most marginalized people. It always affects poor people. It always affects people in the global south. It always affects Black people and South Asian people. I try to make connections between how we can center environmentalism in our everyday lives and in our consumptive habits so that we can think bigger picture and have global perspectives of environmentalism.
If you start thinking about environmentalism, you might think about your work environment. Then you start thinking, “Well, I don’t want someone else outside of the United States to have a bad work environment.” You start thinking about not only sustainability but work conditions for workers. It changes everything and creates links of connection between marginalized people, which is really important to me.
Rian Phin, Tina Rudasingwa
In your journey towards ecofeminism, fashion, and activism, was there someone or a book or an idea you encountered that just unlocked everything and helped you decode it all?
I think the most pivotal person in my journey was this fashion writer named Arabelle Sicardi. They were really popular on Tumblr, and they really helped me in terms of considering some of these perspectives and the importance of sharing them. Once they learn something, they would immediately share it with people. They taught me how to be sustainable when you’re saving up towards designer fashion pieces, if that’s what you want to do.
As far as environmentalism, Majora Carter, who is a green-conscious leader. The book Fashioning Identity by Maria Mackinney-Valentin literally changed everything. It made me realize once you understand fashion, you don’t have to be afraid of it. You can feel power through fashion instead of being intimidated by it.
You use Twitter and TikTok a lot. But I feel like Instagram and YouTube are the most profitable vessels to talk about fashion, and I feel like you know that. However, you still choose to go on TikTok and go on Twitter, especially when those are platforms that put you in the line of fire. I see people fighting back against what you say, and you still wake up every day and choose to go on those platforms. I feel like there’s some kind of significant meaning for why TikTok and Twitter are your things…
Thank you for noticing that. That’s so cool that you noticed that. I like Twitter and TikTok partly because of the immediacy. I did YouTube for a really long time, and it would take me weeks and months to edit, even during the quarantine. I didn’t feel like I could get the information out as quickly. If people wanted to be in conversation with me after three weeks of editing, maybe I’m too tired to check the comments, so there’s nothing I can really offer them. It’s just me dumping all my work onto them. With Twitter and Tik Tok, it’s a younger audience, Gen Z, which I really love talking to. I think they’re so smart and fast-paced. It’s the immediacy of the conversations, even if people disagree with me.
How would you define sustainability?
Sustainability is making use of what you have and then actually using it. Longevity.
I feel like the idea can be really overwhelming for most because it feels like it’s all or nothing. How would you encourage people to start getting into sustainable practices?
My first step is always to tell people that they probably already are doing sustainable things; they just don’t realize it. Everybody has pajama shirts from eighth-grade graduation, and [they] hold onto them and sleep in them into their twenties. That is a sustainable practice. You’re doing it, it saves you money, and it works. I’m always trying to show people that sustainability isn’t this overwhelming, super-expensive, super-white, purchasing-centered thing that you don’t want to do, that’s why I’m always posting pictures of Gucci high heels for $40 and $20. Sustainability can slay and serve you, even if you don’t care about the principles of sustainability. The things that we do that aren’t sustainable are not things that we naturally would be inclined to do. They’re things that are encouraged by big corporations. Doing things that make you feel happy and calm in yourself can be a sustainable practice; not shopping as often, holding on to stuff that you already have, thinking of different ways to wear things, and finding inspiration in yourself.
What role do you think Tumblr has played in the current fashion ecosystem?
The remnants of Tumblr are the basis of almost all internet fashion culture, whether people realize it or not. High fashion Twitter and all aspects of fashion TikTok exist because of the foundations that people like Shahan Assadourian and different creators on Tumblr built around archiving fashion images and thinking that it’s really important to know the history of fashion images and document it on the internet for young people.
The culture on Tumblr around fashion discourse set a precedent for the way people talk about fashion on Twitter and TikTok, where people are trying to establish themselves as authorities in fashion and making their Twitter accounts into mini fashion magazines. I’ve sourced that back to Tumblr discourse and the cultures around that and applying race theory, gender theory, and conversations about proximity to desirability. Tumblr normalized doing that and made it okay to take fetish imagery, high art imagery, and contemporary art, and put that next to fashion. That’s all straight from Tumblr’s platform and the physical setup of their user experience. I love Tumblr.
The anonymity on Tumblr allowed it to be a little bit democratic. Yeah, there are people with a lot of followers and a lot more influence, but it felt like we were kind of all on the same playing field. Do you think Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok have negatively impacted the fashion ecosystem? Post-Covid, I feel like we exist in this hyper-visual world, which is why people feel the pressure to compete and to replicate all these images and participate in subcultures that they have no actual real-world relationship with.
It was cool that Tumblr didn’t show your followers; that was all private to you; that’s the democratic nature you’re speaking to. You’re doing these interactions based on good faith, kind of. All social media has the capacity to create negative environments for replication and a lack of individuality. I always just wonder, “What would it be like if we didn’t have them?” So even though sometimes we’re like, “Oh my God, this is so exhausting.” I’m like, “Well, what is the other option? Television? People getting how to dress from television and makeover culture?” That’s the big networks telling everybody what to do.
I don’t know if you were seven knowing who Margiela was…but, did you have any fashion influences growing up before you became more knowledgeable about fashion?
The way I started getting into fashion was a weird coincidence. I was going into bookstores in elementary school when I was seven or eight and looking in art books and fashion books. I wasn’t trying to find fashion; I was just trying to see sexy girls, like, weird, perverted little kid things. I would go to the barbershop with my dad and my brother, and I would look through Black magazines. Being Black in Miami in the nineties, I was like, “Whoa!” There’s something that happens when you can fashion an identity for yourself. Seeing Trina wearing so many cool designer clothes and seeing Eve were my major fashion inspirations. And then, as I grew up, seeing skateboarding culture and underground subcultures in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris. It wasn’t even just the fashion; it was the freedom to express yourself. I was really into Los Angeles skate culture in elementary and middle school. There is something free about how they’re getting dressed, and skating, and building community.
With Black people, specifically Black queer people, personal style historically has been a tool for self-expression and self-defense. Can you talk about that connection?
Last summer, I was trying to figure out why clothes are so important to Black people. I’m Black, and I’m from the south, and clothes are everything. I started learning about the sumptuary laws in the United States, and obviously, I knew Black people’s clothing had always been policed. But I started learning that Black people could only use textiles for trade and different things like that. There are literal historical reasons why Black people have such a unique relationship with fashion that goes back to American law and American legislature.
It’s such an area of power and freedom that Black people are able to take on in a way that every other system of power wants to take away from us. When everything is trying to take away your humanity, your identity, your culture, your existence, and you have this one thing that grounds you and connects you to people who look like you. I’m really happy that Black people have it. I was reading about how Black people use sound resonance in fashion to take up space and have a presence in ways that we’re not allowed to otherwise. It’s the most genius way of existing through self-expression because it’s like the one thing nobody can take away from you. Black people having the foresight and the ability to multiply existence through outward identity is an expression that carries a legacy.
Are there any specific reasons Black people should care about sustainable practices or sustainable fashion?
Black people specifically should care about sustainability almost more than anybody because green consciousness is a Black thing. Caring about the environment and caring about the earth is Black history; it’s something Black people have always done: tending to the land, caring about animals, caring about nature, holding on to things, and making good use of things. The careless disposal relationship that we are encouraged to have with the environment is literally white supremacy in action. Taking care of your environment and expecting this earth to last is the most sacred thing you can do for other Black people.
Looking to the past and valuing the past, and caring about history and culture, and legacy is what sustainability is all about. Caring about things that have existed in the past...that’s so integral to Black culture. Innovation is also a really big part of Black culture. But innovation can exist through existing items, and Black people have the power to make existing items cool and intelligent, and innovative in a way that no one else does. Why leave that behind and be like, “Well, let’s just make new things and destroy the earth”? We should honor the work that Black people have done globally to care for the environment. Not caring for the environment most negatively impacts Black people and other people of color. All of the clothes that go from the landfill to other countries are going to Black countries, Black people’s environments, and other people of color’s environments. The people being exploited to make the clothes globally sometimes are Black or other people of color. All of this work is being done to harm their environment. They’re making clothes, being exploited, and then we’re sending the landfills full of clothes to their front doorstep. We should have global solidarity as Black people; that should be our main thing; caring about the earth and perpetuating our legacies culturally, physically, and environmentally. That’s something that we can do, and I truly believe Black people have the power to do that.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Download issue 7 of Blacks Rule as a PDF for free here and buy a physical copy here.