Rikki Byrd

Rikki Byrd is a writer, educator and curator who works across the academy, arts and fashion industries. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, a Master of Arts in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design and a Master of Arts in African American Studies from Northwestern University, where she is also currently pursuing her PhD in African American Studies. She has lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis, where she created new courses on fashion and race. She has written for Hyperallergic, Cultured and Teen Vogue, and has participated in speaking engagements with the Council of the Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), Google, Kering, and Studio Museum in Harlem, among several other arts and cultural institutions. In her writing and public speaking capacity, she has interviewed formidable fashion professionals and artists such as the late André Leon Talley, Amy Sherald and Mickalene Thomas. Rikki is currently an editorial board member for Bloomsbury Fashion Publishing and a recipient of the esteemed Presidential Fellowship at Northwestern University and a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency. She is the founder and editor of the Fashion and Race Syllabus and Black Fashion Archive.