A new book from AphroChic blends history and modern living to paint a picture of the Black family home.
A vividly painted living room hung with family portraits going back five generations. A framed employment rejection letter by the front door. Fuchsia millwork as a back-drop for a reupholstered dinette set, passed down from a beloved grandmother. Such are the spaces and stories that readers will find inside the second book from Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason, the Brooklyn-based spouses behind AphroChic, a blog they founded in 2007 that quickly grew into an interiors and lifestyle brand focused on African American life at home. The duo knew they wanted their new project to go far deeper than a traditional design book, exploring not only beautiful interiors but also the largely untold narrative of Black homeownership in America. While the finished product features plenty of glossy pages filled with stunning spaces, AphroChic: Celebrating the Legacy of the Black Family Home is also interspersed with history lessons that unpack the ramifications of everything from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to the COVID-19 pandemic on Black families. Ahead of the book’s mid-November release, Hays and Mason shared its origin story, why Black design defies categorization and the importance of exploring sorrow and joy in equal measure.
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