HOW TO SLAY

A new book from @rizzolibooks#howtoslay is on my slay-dar right now. (from my ig feed)

Another must have You say? 
Yes Indeed. 

Written by Constance C.R. White How to Slay: Inspiration from the Queens and Kings of Black Style looks at the last three decades of Black style influencers and their inspirations. Photographer Itaysha Johnson's cover photo and the two below are the most stunning of the moment photographs in the book—author, photographer, model and stylist interpret classic styles and cultural references with ease, not to mention CHIC.

Model Gaye McDonald wears an American Classic—the peacoat.

Another glorious photograph by Itaysha Jordan echoes the hairstyle Bantu knots of the tribe in southern Africa.

White insists How To Slay is meant to be fun, informative. 

It is that, along with being a visual feast of Style in page after page.

Among her many topics, Ms White considers the Afro, a hairstyle synonymous with 70's Black Culture, and its context as a symbol of protest during the decade.

While women then felt the style interfered with their job prospects, today women are wearing the Afro with great frequency. Think gorgeous actress, Lupito Nyongo and her closely cropped head, but for my taste—the bigger the better, as author White writes, "The Afro is so cool and singular." 

One of my favourite singers Nina Simone is recognized in the book and I can think of no women of that decade that personifies authentic black Chic. 
Yes, this book is full of Black Chic—but just CHIC will do in the case of How To Slay. Other divas of the 70's like Diana Ross make appearances, along with today's trailblazers in style Alicia Keyes, Janell Monae, and Eryka Badu, three of the most individually stylish women today.

Actress Pam Grier, star of Foxy Brown, was the epitome of everything modern in 70's Black style. It's fantastic to see all of these women, and lest we forget the men, assembled within the pages of this book. 

I for one, as is obvious from my own book, love to see a book that assembles everything on its subject with killer photographs and commentary. White pulls it together—the divas, the color, the attitudes, the textiles & patterns, the influencers, all aspects of Black Style. 
That 60's term & movement, "BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL" comes to mind within every page of HOW TO SLAY.  It remains so today, and definitively so in HOW TO SLAY.