Mary J Blige still suffered bigotry after her sudden rise to stardom. The 53-year-old singer released her hit debut album, 'What's the 411?', back in 1992, but Mary and her stylist Misa Hylton were both still encountering prejudice during their shopping trips in the early 90s. In the new docuseries 'In Vogue: The 90s', Misa shared: "Mary J Blige is the first artist I ever styled.
"When we met, we automatically got each other, We understood each other. We loved the same fashion. We loved hip hop.
We loved style. "So at this time, the early '90s, we were making money, and we were able to shop and able to buy things that are more expensive and more luxury." Mary' debut album was a critical and commercial success, and the chart-topping star recalled "blowing our credit cards to smithereens" at the time.
She said: "I've been in a lot of stores with Misa. We were shopping so much because we never had a lot. Once we were able to shop and get the things we wanted, we were blowing our credit cards to smithereens.
" Despite this, Mary and Misa still struggled to find "respect" in some quarters. The stylist explained: "We went to a boutique and we were shopping. When it’s time to pay, the sales associate keeps telling us.
'The card's declining.' They keep trying. "We call the credit card company.
The card’s not declining. It’s actually not even being rung. Like, ‘Oh, okay.
You don’t want us to buy these items.’ It’s because we were young and we were black, and they could not figure out how we were spending this much money. "They didn’t even realise who Mary J.
Blige was yet, and so you see how luxury fashion brands didn’t really value us or didn’t respect us. They didn’t see their brands on us.".
