Arthur McGee

In 1957, at 24, McGee took charge of the design room at the Seventh Avenue apparel company Bobbie Brooks and is widely credited as the first Black designer to run a Seventh Avenue design studio. That job mattered as much as any single dress: it showed that a Black designer could lead mass-market production in the garment district rather than only sew for private clients. He opened his own store in the early 1960s, and both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture now hold his work. The wool tweed jacket pictured, with its shawl collar and turned-back cuffs, is one of his pieces in the Smithsonian's collection.