Stories in Fabric
The Design Works of Bedford Stuyvesant
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The untold history of a pioneering Black design company in Bed-Stuy whose creativity garnered national attention in the 1970s
In Stories in Fabric: The Design Works of Bedford Stuyvesant, design historian Phyllis Ross uncovers the rise of a groundbreaking African American textile studio founded in Brooklyn in 1969. The Design Works of Bedford Stuyvesant began as a collaboration between Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and textile designer Leslie Tillett. Through Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s urban renewal vision, they grew it into a nationally recognized brand that celebrated African sources and Black pride, bringing national attention to neighborhood ambition.
Ross follows Design Works from hand-printed textiles to a broader licensing and printing operation that put African-inspired patterns into homes across the country. The company’s visibility soared through high-profile showcases and museum partnerships, including a spectacular Metropolitan Museum event and later exhibitions that showed how its patterns connected to African art, flora, and fauna. These collaborations helped shift perceptions of Bed-Stuy from crisis to creativity and possibility.
At the heart of the story are the people who made the designs and made the business work, including post-war textile designers D.D. Tillett and Leslie Tillett. Early artistic direction came from designers such as Callie Simpson Thomas, followed by head designer Sherl Nero, whose talent and market instincts shaped the brand’s evolution. Under president Mark Bethel, the pivot to licensing carried Design Works into the national marketplace, even as the company continued to navigate tensions among social mission, profitability, and cultural representation.
Drawing on deep archival research and interviews, Ross traces Design Works’ evolution against the backdrop of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and the practical realities of community development and corporate partnerships. The result is a vivid portrait of collaboration across communities and institutions, and a reclamation of a significant episode in twentieth-century design and African American urban history.
The Fabric of Activism tells the remarkable history of Design Works, a textile studio in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, that produced African-inspired fabrics for the American home furnishing market during the 1970s. Bringing together histories of Civil Rights activism, white philanthropy, community development, and the Black Arts Movement, design historian Phyllis Ross details the complexity of Design Works as a commercial, political, and artistic enterprise. The book begins with the patronage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and commercial savvy of famed designers D.D. and Leslie Tillett. By the end, the story belongs to Sherl Nero, an African American textile maker and the studio’s head designer, whose bestselling Bakuba fabric collection made Design Works a household name. Writing with an expert eye for the art, business, and politics of textile design, Ross illuminates an important chapter in the history of twentieth century textiles with implications for how we think about the politics of race in the business of design today.—Chris Dingwall, PhD, Assistant Professor of Design History, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis
This is a fascinating book that combines, in a unique way, elements of business history, visual art history, and African American urban history. . .The author brings an original story and a deeply researched book that specialists will welcome. . . Ross’s contribution to scholarship on New York City, Brooklyn specifically, and the history of the 1970s is welcomed to the field . . . I think this book is important and special.—Brian Purnell, author of Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings: The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn
