An Endowment of Black Glamour
Our Philosophy
Glamour as Intellect
Atelier Lincoln is a curatorial studio dedicated to honoring Black glamour through a living repository, archival ephemera, and intellectual study.
We reclaim luxury not as vanity, but as an act of intellectual rebellion. Through archival photography, oral histories, and cultural artifacts, we document the Black women who made glamour political, revolutionary, and sacred.
Our Work
THREE PILLARS OF PRESERVATION
✨ Curatorial Practice
Exhibitions, conversations, and public programming that honor the women who shaped style and culture. We stage the archive as living performance.
💌 Living Repository
A dynamic collection of photographs, artifacts, and ephemera documenting Black glamour from the 1920s to today. Each item tells a story of resilience wrapped in silk and gold.
💄 Intellectual Study
Critical essays, research publications, and scholarly dialogues examining glamour as cultural production, resistance, and power. Theory meets velvet curtains.
“In a time when we have more access than ever before to the traumas of this world, how will you resist the tide of despair? Let beauty be your anchor.”
— Cole Arthur Riley
Under the creative direction of Atelier Lincoln, The Conservatory is a society offering deep study into the intellects and aesthetics of Black Glamour.
Through carefully selected readings, archival materials, and intimate gatherings, we study the lives of Black Women who used glamour not just as appearance but as strategy, cadence and power. We convene to ask these questions:
What happens when we induct our heritage into it’s own academy of genius?
What does it mean to be nourished by glamour, lineage, and intellect, all at once?
How might Black Glamour itself become a kind of archive, a kind of teaching, a kind of healing?
We move through the pedagogy of Black Glamour not only to admire the past, but to inherit its strategy.
The Curricula of Black Glamour…
To honor the discipline of Black Glamour, we must also study the ways it has always survived. These traditions guide our approach to study, shaping the readings, gatherings, and reflections that unfold within the Conservatory.
Ready for the Glamour?
This is the first edition, a collector’s run. Exposition I is open to all readers at no cost. Select gatherings within the series will be ticketed experiences, available for those who want to step deeper into the world of Black Glamour.
Café Society
Collector’s Preview
Inspired by the glamour, rebellion, and brilliance of the Black creatives who gathered in Harlem’s legendary nightspots. Café Society is for the curious, collectors & the committed.
✓ The Expositions (released slowly, title by title)
Midnight Flight
Collector’s Preview
The first class glamour experience, named in honor of the quiet courageous journeys of the Black artists, thinkers and seekers who crossed international borders for freedom, study and discovery.
✓ The Expositions (released slowly, title by title)
✓ The Glamour Repertoire (visual essays and archives)
The Loendi Club
Pay Per Event
Named for a society and literary circle from the forgotten Black Renaissance of Smoketown, these live salons and intensives are intimate, in-person forums that deepen and expand the Conservatory experience.
✓ The Expositions (released slowly, title by title)
✓ The Glamour Repertoire (visual essays and archives)
✓ Forum experiences held in Durham + Surrounding Areas, NC
GLAMOUR NOTES FOR THE ARCHIVE
Create Your Own Curricula of Glamour.
Build your own archive. In addition to the society, we create collections of stationary with vintage motifs and designs. Each item becomes is a tactile part of the Repertoire. A meaningful way to carry Glamour into your everyday.
Write a note to remind yourself of the glamour you possess or share a moment of gratitude to someone else. Make sure to pair it with your favorite color to compliment your repertoire.
Glamour Deserves Gratitude
The shop is our love letter. To the women who came before us, the rituals that shaped us, and the grace we carry forward in their honor.
Glamour is not frivolous. It is a form of memory, reverence, and beauty. This shop is our offering in return.
Get to Know Me
You may also know me as @theglamourarchivist. I’m the founder of Atelier Lincoln a way of life, a study, and a living endowment. Through it, I honor our experience through the lens of Vintage Black Glamour not as costume, but as strategy for survival.
For a long time, glamour felt distant. Something reserved, unobtainable and an elite offering only for special ones. But even as a child, I knew Black Glamour was real. I saw it in my grandmother. In the way she groomed herself each morning, even when her life gave her every reason not to. The lipstick. The hot comb. The nail designs. I wore plastic high heels and princess tiaras, sensing that I, too, would become something beautiful. But I didn’t yet know what or why.
YOU'VE GOT GLAMOUR MAIL
YOU'VE GOT GLAMOUR MAIL
-
![]()
Ephemera.
-
![]()
Glamour.
-
![]()
Vintage.
-
![]()
Archives.
The practice of beholding this fidelity to beauty in all things, I’ve come to believe is no small form of salvation
- Cole Arthur Riley