Patrick Kelly Gilliwog Liner
We chose to do liners as a means to insulate and insinuate black unity through cultural reflection and transparency in our past. The liners also serve as a reminder to stay vigilant to black exception, as we are equally oppressed as a race in American society.
Each liner is its own original as each are vintage. Please allow time for production and shipping. You will recieve an email once your order has shipped.
Patrick Kelly
Kelly “would always give everyone in his audience a tiny brown doll with molded black hair that could be most accurately described as a pickaninny.” Kelly stated that his Black dolls brought him pleasure. It is unclear what he meant by that—whether it was the pleasure of childhood nostalgia or of deploying the dolls as agents of disruption. After learning that his friend, who was also Black, had been harassed for wearing one of the pins, Kelly said, “You can wear a machine gun or a camouflage war outfit and people think it’s so chic, but you put a little black baby pin on and people attack you.” This incident occurred sometime before Bette Davis gave David Letterman one of Kelly’s pins. However, after Davis startled Letterman with her gift, the fanfare around the pins escalated. Kelly continued to state that he “[did] these things [giving away the dolls] so we don’t forget each other.” The figures to the right were ones given by Patrick Kelly at hi runway shows, where has also stated that when a black person wears the golliwogs, they instantly contest its racist origins by showing that living, breathing Blackness is far from the stereotypes the golliwog represent.