Jon Haggins

Fashion designer and producer Jon Haggins was born on September 5, 1943 in Tampa, Florida, to Willie and John Haggins. He graduated from the High School of Fashion Industries in New York City in 1960 and earned his A.A.S. degree in fashion design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1964.

In 1965, Haggins launched Jon Haggins Designs in New York City, New York. His work and is work gained wide acclaim appearing in such publications as Cosmopolitan, Essence, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue. His clients included entertainers like Eartha Kitt and Martha Reeves. While Joe Haggins Designs would close between the years of 1975 to 1979, it would reopen in 1980. Haggins also performed as a cabaret singer for several years. In 197, he partnered with his friend Kiko Morgan and co-founded Teeze, Inc., a T-shirt printing business. From 1989 to 1999, he worked as a tour guide for Black heritage tours in New York City while producing several travel television programs. In 2000, Haggins became the producer and host of The Globetrotter, a weekly lifestyle and travel television series that aired for twenty-three years. He also published The African American Travel Guide to Hot, Exotic, and Fun-Filled Places in 2002 and his memoir, Just Being Jon, in 2022. In 2006, his work was featured in the Museum of the City of New York’s Black Style Now exhibit.

Haggins’s achievements across the fashion and travel media industries earned him numerous awards and honors. He received a Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award nomination and the Bristol Crème Award in 1980. In 2014, he received the Italian Award from the Italian Tourists Guide. Brooklyn Free Speech honored him with the Free Speech Award in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2023.

Jon Haggins passed away on June 15, 2023.

Jon Haggins was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 11, 2023.