“I feel like there’s always a fight for equality and space. We’re always seemingly behind the eight-ball, no matter what,” says Inga Beckham, co-founder and CFO of Sergio Hudson Collections, over a Zoom call. Over the course of our conversation days ago, Beckham shed light on the unique plight Black designers are currently facing amid President Donald Trump and the tariff changes taking place during his presidency. According to Beckham, the tariffs have her and Hudson thinking about how the brand will navigate the future. On Monday, President Trump took to the social media platform Truth Social to warn the American conglomerate Walmart after the company reportedly declared it would have to raise prices due to the high costs of the global trade war.
The ongoing challenges that Black designers face are already significant–especially due to fashion being an industry that doesn’t prioritize them or their needs. Compared to established, non-Black owned brands, Black founders’ futures feel less secure, even if business is going well, according to Beckham. “You’re out there, you’re dressing these people, and it’s a beautiful thing, but we still need to scale the business. We still need more marketing. There’s so many people who still don’t know about Sergio Hudson,” Beckham mentioned.
With the looming tariff cost discussions, a prediction that the upcoming costs will disproportionately impact Black fashion brands might be correct. These businesses lack resources, from insufficient mentorship to underfunding. In 2020, according to the Federal Reserve, Black-owned businesses were less likely to be approved for bank loans. Just last year, the U.S. Small Business Administration reported that SBA “backed 5,054 loans to Black-owned businesses, totaling $1.4 billion, accounting for 7.2% of total loans approved.” In comparison, white business owners received $12 billion–white business owners also made up 45.5% of loans approved. These fiscal representations are key findings alongside racial bias that provide difficulties when Black business owners are aiming to secure loans to enrich their companies.
“One of the biggest and greatest challenges that African American business owners face is not getting access to the capital they need,” Larry Ivory, president and CEO of the Illinois State Black Chamber of Commerce shared. “Cisco (CSCO) data points out the fact that Black people get turned down at a much higher rate than Caucasians, even with the same credit scores and same factors being considered,” Ivory added.
Add in the exorbitant tax on imported goods, DEI rollbacks, and the intensity of worry across the fashion industry has become quite normalized. Rhetoric by President Trump also adds to the array of feelings of disappointment that are currently running rampant. Last month, President Trump rolled out “punishing tariffs” on dozens of U.S. trading partners before abruptly reversing them for 90 days for every country except China, according to The New York Times. His initial signing of Executive Order 14257 which announced severe tariffs was described as a “declaration of economic independence” by President Trump.
A temporary pause of the Chinese tariffs took place in April. On May 12, the U.S. and China reportedly said “they had reached an agreement to reduce the tariffs they have imposed on each other for 90 days while they try to negotiate a trade deal.” A New York Times report states that under the agreement, the United States would reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to 30% from its current 145%. “China would lower its import duty on American goods to 10% from 125%,” the report reads.
In this state, crucial questions regarding how Black brands will navigate such economic instability, and social regression are of the utmost importance, according to Beckham. She tells ESSENCE that these questions are vital whether or not the tariff costs impact your Black business. It does, however, present a new opportunity to ask more specific ones. Like, “How can Black retailers mitigate increases in domestic production costs?”
Sergio Hudson is experiencing the rise of tariff costs firsthand. “We use silk in mostly all of our lining. We use wool, and our silk is from Asia. And though we buy it in America, we know it is sourced from Asia,” Beckham said. She expresses that the moment tariff costs began shifting, vendors had already wanted to increase pricing. “The frustrating part is it’s already being used against us.”
What’s a brand to do? The automatic assumption is that they’d have the consumer shoulder some of the burden through a price increase. But that isn’t so easy. Brands like Sergio Hudson have a much closer relationship with their customers, many of them high-profile women in leadership roles. “There are C-suite women, women in government positions who are being laid off. Some of the events that these women would be buying the clothing for to attend are not happening any longer,” Beckham said. It may not be that they don’t have the financial means, but, like everyone else experiencing the effects of inflation and anticipating a recession, they’re spending less. A CNN report stated that as President Donald Trump’s tariffs loom Americans are saving more while spending less.
“There is no other conclusion possible other than the Trump 2.0 economic policies are frightening consumers as much as they do corporations,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FwdBonds wrote in a note shared with CNN in March. “The economy is going to stall out if not something worse if Washington policymakers are not careful.”
Indeed, consumers bear the brunt of this too. Let’s say Black brands did have to kick up the price on products; Beckham tells me that it isn’t entirely off-target to question whether the Black consumer will second-guess paying it and instead buy from a brand with more name recognition. (Consider also that comparatively, Black brands don’t go on sale as much.)
Beckham and Kristian Hogans, assistant professor of apparel, merchandising, and design at Alabama A&M University, say it all comes down to education. Exposure and infrastructure also play into what’s to come, and a shift in thinking about what goes beyond what we want and the role we play. That has everything to do with the deeper meaning of clothing for Black people. When we clothe ourselves in Theophilio, Christopher John Rogers, or Fear of God, we wear cultural products by designers marking an important and potentially fleeting moment in fashion history.
We all need clothing, Hogans acknowledges. “Something that Black designers are experiencing right now is running to infuse our culture and our identity into this thing that everyone should have access to.” Which highlights, pointedly, that access is an issue for Black brands and consumers alike. A portion of the Black community is excluded from the marketplace, particularly luxury and Black-owned brands, the latter of which is often pricey out of necessity. And as founders struggle to turn their visibility—press coverage, runway shows, fame, for instance into revenue, they can struggle to stay afloat.
Hogans urges us to stay grounded in our track record of overcoming. “We know how to endure. We know how to overcome. We know how to be resilient. Those seem like such tough characteristics, but not everybody knows how to do that,” she tells ESSENCE.
Still, there are practical ways for Black brands to ensure they make it. Expanding their offering, developing or doubling down on a hero product, and forging authentic brand collaborations are reasonable paths forward. They’ll have to “pivot, find new ways to satisfy the consumer,” Beckham advises. She says it will assist with getting you a different audience.
