Grace Jones turns 65 today! In this 1989 photo by Roxanne Lowit, she is with the late great fashion designer, Patrick Kelly and legendary models Iman and Naomi Campbell.
Happy 82nd Birthday to my FAVORITE Aunt Mildred Taylor (nee Green) my grandmother’s baby sister. In the 1950s, she competed (and won!) in “Negro” beauty pageants and did some local modeling in our hometown of Newark, NJ. I wanted to show you what she looked like today to show you that Vintage Black Glamour can last for a lifetime. Happy Birthday Aunt Mildred!
LeJeune Hundley, Miss Cannes 1960. Hundley was a popular Ophelia DeVore model. I plucked this photo from my archives - but I’m almost sure I found it in a vintage issue of Jet.
Pioneering model Helen Williams, in a 1960s Avon cosmetics advertisement.
Legendary model Naomi Sims in the photo that appeared on the cover of the October 17, 1969 issue of Life magazine. Photo: Yale Joel/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Barbara Smith (right) and another model pose for the legendary Pittsburgh photographer, Charles “Teenie” Harris, backstage at a fashion show around 1969. Barbara Smith would go on to a successful modeling career and become even better known as a restaurateur, lifestyle expert and entrepreneur, B. Smith. Photo: Carnegie Museum of Art/Heinz Family Fund.
Sara Lou Harris, one of the first Black models to appear in national advertisements, in the 1950s. The Bennett College graduate also had a brief career as a singer and an actress.
Pat Cleveland being fitted by designer Stephen Burrows in his East Village studio in April 1971. Burrows was a newly rising star in fashion at this time, especially after the opening of his boutique, “Stephen Burrows World” in Henri Bendel
A 1974 Fashion Fair ad featuring Pal Henry, a woman who describes leaving her nursing career behind to go back to modeling because “one medic in the family was quite enough.” Let’s hope that worked out for her in the long run…
A 1961 Dixie Peach advertisement that appeared in Ebony featuring Eileen Mills, Director “of the glamorous Negro cover girls at New York’s leading agency for colored models.”
Donyale Luna having her makeup done by a fellow model for a fashion show, 1960s.
(via backtothefiveanddime)
Pioneering model Helen Williams, hands down, the most photographed Black model of the 1950s and 1960s, in a 1960s Kodak advertisement.
