Clothing and refugee identity in Des sneakers comme Jay-Z

Abstract

This article presents and analyzes how clothing shapes refugee identity in Des sneakers comme Jay-Z, an engaged photographic project from 2018 by French photographers Frédéric Delangle and Ambroise Tézenas. Commissioned by the association Emmaüs Solidarité, the series features forty-six portraits of men seeking asylum in France. The refugees wear outfits they selected from available donations at the Centre de premier accueil de la Porte de la Chapelle in Paris. First-person texts featuring the men’s thoughts about their clothing choices accompany the images. I contend that vestimentary choices in Des sneakers comme Jay-Z reflect each man’s sense of agency in the social construction of his nascent transnational identity as he adapts to life within the French Republic. Although casual, everyday outfits rarely draw engaged reflection by those around us, photographing the refugees in their selected outfits and questioning them about these items creates a project that defamiliarizes common garments to encourage viewers to reflect on clothing’s role in fashioning new subjectivities. Reading the accompanying texts through the lens of the sociology of clothing and fashion, the article investigates how the men’s apparel choices reflect both nostalgia for their homelands and a desire to integrate into French society. Through the shared human experience of self-presentation through dress, Des sneakers comme Jay-Z thus constructs a narrative emphasizing refugees’ basic humanity in order to contest anti-migrant discourses.