Willi Smith

Smith founded WilliWear in 1976 with his business partner Laurie Mallet and built it on affordable, adaptable basics: easy separates that read now as streetwear before anyone used the word. By 1986 the label was grossing $25 million a year, and Cooper Hewitt calls him the most commercially successful Black American designer of the 20th century. He also drew artists, filmmakers and performers into his work; for his Spring 1984 runway show at the Puck Building in SoHo, the video artist Nam June Paik made video graphics that turned stacked televisions into part of the set. He died of AIDS-related illness in 1987, and his name faded until Cooper Hewitt's 2020 exhibition Willi Smith: Street Couture brought it back.