Juneteenth is an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S., also known as “Emancipation Day” or “Freedom Day,” and is a time for reflection and celebration. As people across the country gather to commemorate the holiday today, Beyoncé found her own way to acknowledge the moment on the Amsterdam leg of her Renaissance world tour—she took to the stage wearing exclusively costumes created by Black fashion designers.
“In honor of Juneteenth, everything I wore for Renaissance World Tour tonight was created exclusively by Black designers,” the singer wrote on Instagram on Sunday night. There are 51 dates on the blockbuster tour, and Beyoncé has worked with the stylists KJ Moody, Shiona Turini, Karen Langley, and British Vogue’s Julia Sarr-Jamois to create a vast “tour-drobe” with a disco-inspired aesthetic, with new custom looks being introduced for different legs of the tour. The Black designers she championed on stage include Feben, Maximilian Davis for Ferragamo, Olivier Rousteing for Balmain, Ibrahim Kamara for Off-White, LaQuan Smith, and her own designs for Ivy Park.
Stand-out looks from Beyoncé’s Amsterdam show included a custom glittering bodysuit in red, white, and gold by the emerging London-based designer Feben, who is of Ethiopian heritage and was born in North Korea. This isn’t the first time they have collaborated, as Beyoncé commissioned the designer straight after her 2020 Central Saint Martins MA womenswear graduate collection, to create costumes for the video for her track “Brown Skin Girl.”
“In a way, when you’re a Black woman, you’re not treated fairly in most industries,” Feben previously told Vogue Business from her Dalston studio. “It just takes a bit longer to have any room or space or be spoken to correctly. I think I’ll always have that no matter what room I walk into, whether it’s fashion or not.”
To perform “I’m That Girl”, Beyoncé wore a silver corseted bodysuit that resembled armor designed by Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing. The Parisian house describes her silver-plated bodysuit—which she paired with thigh-high boots—as “robo couture”. Balmain has been very involved in the Renaissance world, as Rousteing, Beyoncé, and her stylist Marni Senofonte previously collaborated on a 17-piece special collection.
“I can’t help but be thrilled by the history-making aspects of this collaboration,” Rousteing told Vogue at the time about working with the star. “This appears to be the first time that a Black woman has overseen the couture offering from an historic Parisian house. And those designs were created in partnership with the first Black man to ever oversee all the collections at an historic Parisian house. Let’s hope those two firsts help inspire plenty of others.”
Beyoncé also wore a bright pink sequined gown with a halter neckline and thigh-high slits and matching gloves, which was a bespoke design overseen by the star from her own label, Ivy Park. Her dancers matched in bodysuits and crop tops in the same highly saturated shade of pink, with a mix of sequins, fringing, velvet, and mesh.
Perhaps the most memorable look on the night, however, was a fitted red beaded Ferragamo gown which had a sculpted waist, a square neckline, and a thigh-high slit on the left leg. It’s the very definition of a knock-out dress. Maximilian Davis took the helm at Ferragamo in January 2022, and has made this fiery shade of red his signature. The shade echoes the flag of Trinidad and Tobago (a nod to his background), but is also an important color in the heritage of Ferragamo.
Red was a key color throughout the performance—Beyoncé also wore a sporty red bodysuit which was a custom design by Ibrahim Kamara for Off-White, inspired by his debut fall 2023 “Lunar Delivery” collection. The straps, zips, and proportions of Beyoncé’s look—and her dancers’ zip-up boilersuits—had the same intergalactic feeling as that collection.
The volume of custom looks Beyoncé has worn for the Renaissance tour, which started in May, has been staggering. As Vogue’s André-Naquian Wheeler put it: “At this point, Beyoncé’s Renaissance world tour is part concert, part extended exercise in seeing just how many custom looks one pop star can commission and pack.”
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