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.
A model wears Art Smith’s “Modern Cuff” Bracelet, circa 1948. Art Smith (1917-1982) was a modernist jeweler born in Cuba to Jamaican parents who eventually emigrated to Brooklyn. He opened his first shop on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village in 1946 - no small feat. According to the Brooklyn Museum (host of a 2008 exhibit of his work) he was one of the leading modernist jewelers of the mid-twentieth century. Along with being covered by magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, Smith, an avid jazz lover, once made cufflinks for Duke Ellington which included some notes from Mr. Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” Mr. Smith was also a supporter of early Black modern dance groups and an active supporter of Black and gay rights. Art Smith was quoted in the 1969 catalog for his one man exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft: “A piece of jewelry is in a sense an object that is not complete in itself. Jewelry is a ‘what is it?’ until you relate it to the body. The body is a component in design just as air and space are. Like line, form, and color, the body is a material to work with. It is one of the basic inspirations in creating form.”
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!
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.
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.”
Modeling pioneer Ophelia DeVore (right) with clients and friends (l-r) Joan Murry, Trudy Haynes, the Philadelphia news legend, actress and writer Ellen Holly and the great model Helen Williams. Photo via opheliadevore.com.
Whitney Houston in a 1980s Max Factor ad.
Whitney Houston on the November 1981 cover of Seventeen magazine.
(via dreamhampton1)
