Without question the deadening flatness of fashion seen online can feel like a bummer when you compare it with the experience of the shows in their hectic, wackadoodle glory. Yet there is something to be said for the digital alternatives that emerged in response to the pandemic.

Now everyone can participate in a designer’s process and can acquire direct from a talent like Aaron Potts an understanding of how his gender-neutral Apotts collection originated not with a traipse through the wilds of Pinterest but out of a fascination with syncretic culture and the topsy-turvy doll.

Most likely these curious artifacts — two-headed and two-bodied, one half white, the other Black, the parts joined where the hips and legs would ordinarily be- — originated in the antebellum South. Eventually they became popular enough to be manufactured commercially and distributed nationwide.

“You had this symbolism of one side with the pretty white doll dressed in calico, and when you turned it upside down, the Black doll in tatters,” Mr. Potts said. “That fascinated me.”

Source: New York Times

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