Lloyd Williams is an African American fashion designer born in the French Quarter of New Orleans to working class parents. Ever since he was a boy, Lloyd wanted to go to New York City. After four years in the Navy, Lloyd finally made it to the Big Apple and graduated from FIT. He worked his way up the fashion ladder and opened his own eponymous company, which was one of the first American companies to have manufacturing facilities in China. The company was enormously successful from the get go and Lloyd’s designs were featured in top rated New York boutiques and resellers. In 1986 Lloyd produced a fashion show in Shanghai upon the request of the Chinese government and in 1992 the company was valued at $30/40 million. When recently asked what it was like to be an African American in the fashion industry, Lloyd replied: “Contrary to popular belief, I did not encounter any problems, because the one color that the fashion industry is most interested in is green and we were very successful!”
Lloyd joined us on our third M57 ON-AIR Urban Salon Podcast.
Please click here to listen in!
To learn more about Lloyd William’s fashion exploits,
please click here to read an article featuring Lloyd in The Hour.
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