Naomi Sims, who died of cancer on Saturday at the age of 61, will be remembered as the “the first black supermodel.” She broke boundaries as the first black model on the cover of Ladies Home Journal in November 1968. At a time when companies didn’t hire black models, Sims convinced a New York Times photographer to shoot her for the August 1967 Fashion Supplement, called Fashion of the Times, which she manually distributed to advertisers to promote herself. Within a year, Sims was earning $1,000 a week and had landed a central role on a national television campaign for AT&T. Sims went on to become a central figure in the Black Is Beautiful movement, and later launched a successful business making wigs for African-American women.
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She’s now the hostess of the hit shows America’s Next Top Model and The Tyra Banks Show—but Tyra Banks hasn’t always been in the spotlight. She was discovered in Los Angeles at 17, and, forwent acceptances at USC and UCLA to become the face of Cover Girl. “When I was as model, my biggest obstacle was that I was black and curvy,” she told The New York Times. But despite obstacles, Banks broke boundaries of her own, as the first black woman to grace the covers of GQ, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Banks retired from modeling in 2005, and now offers advice to models on her show, lecturing them on having a strong work ethic and positive body images. And though Tyra didn’t attend college, she insists that brains are an essential part of the model equation. “A smart model is a good model,” she has said.
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BethAnn Hardison has worked as an agent to many African-American models —and she’s certainly (cat)walked in their shoes. Though there’s little photo evidence to prove it, Hardison was a successful model in the 1960s before she founded a pioneering modeling agency. She’s helped launched the careers of everyone from Veronica Webb to Naomi Campbell to Tyson Beckford, and has served as an advocate for African Americans in the fashion industry. “I want to do more than just run an agency," Hardison has said. "I'm here to give other young women an opportunity. I want them to know there's someone who will take time to communicate with them."
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She’s the freshest face in the industry, but 19-year-old Chanel Iman is a walking homage to her predecessors. “My mother had just read a book about Coco Chanel and was impressed by how she built her empire,” she says of her fashionable name. Iman, who is part African-American, part Korean, was signed by Ford Models at the age of 12, and in 2006, won third-place in Ford Models’ Supermodel of the Year contest. Since then, she’s walked the runways for almost every major designer —and even appeared on Time’s fall fashion issue in 2008 —but says she still senses racism in the industry. “Us ethnic girls should be getting a lot of the covers too!,” she told Page Six Magazine, for the cover story. “I would love to be on half of the campaigns these [white] girls are booking, all looking exactly alike. It's not right. It's not fair."
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Naomi Campbell was spotted while window shopping in Covent Garden, London, and appeared on the cover of Elle magazine at the age of 15 in 1986. In1988, she was the first black woman to appear on the cover of French Vogue, after Yves Saint Laurent threatened to pull all his advertising from the magazine if they didn’t feature her on the cover. She appeared as the first black woman on the cover of U.K. Vogue soon after, and has since appeared on over 100 covers. But in a recent issue of Glamour magazine’s German edition, Campbell said she thinks the biz is racist. “You know, the American president may be black, but as black woman, I am still an exception in this business,” she said. “I always have to work harder to be treated equally.”
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A member of Sudan’s Dinka tribe, Alek Wek fled her war-torn homeland at the age of 14. She became a refugee in London, where a modeling agent spotted her wandering the streets. She appeared on a groundbreaking issue of Elle magazine in 1997. Oprah told Alek: “If you’d been on the cover of a magazine when I was growing up, I would have had a different concept of who I was.” Wek has authored Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel. Wek has become committed to humanitarian causes, serving on an advisory board for the U.S. Committee for Refugees, and speaking about her experiences everywhere from schools to the International Black Caucus.
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Katoucha Niane, who blazed the way for black models like Naomi Campbell, was found dead in Paris in 2008 at 47 years old. Police believe she may have accidentally fallen into the Seine after a party. As a muse to Yves Saint Laurent, Niane became one of the highest paid models in the 1980s. Born in Guinea, Niane was the victim of female circumcision at the age of 9. And after she left the catwalk in the mid-1990s, she became an advocate against the practice.
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Kimora Lee Simmons, of Asian and African-American descent, was teased as a child for her height. But she got the last laugh when she signed an exclusive modeling contract with Chanel at the age of 13, and began to work under the tutelage of Karl Lagerfeld. She is now CEO of Phat fashions and has her own reality-TV show, Life in the Fab Lane (she’s still touting the fab life, despite a divorce from her mogul ex, Russell Simmons).
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Sports Illustrated bombshell Roshumba Williams was discovered in Paris by Yves Saint Laurent before becoming a fixture on the catwalk. She was the first African-American model to be featured in four consecutive Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues and is now a judge on the hair reality show Tease, which airs on the Oxygen network.
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Though her modeling career only lasted eight years (she retired after the birth of her daughter in 1995), Peele managed to make quite an impact on the fashion world. She appeared on more than 250 magazine covers, including Vogue and Elle, as well as in campaigns for brands such as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and Versace. Though she slowly faded from the public eye, she made a less-than-graceful return in 2005 when she was arrested for identity theft. She was placed on three years' probation, and sentenced to 300 hours of community service.
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Though Selita Ebanks is now a Victoria's Secret model, her beginnings were decidedly unglamorous. She grew up impoverished in the Cayman Islands, where she said her mother relied on charities to provide for the family. Ebanks was discoverd by an Elite Models agent while walking though a Six Flags theme park in New Jersey at age 17. Ebanks' mentor, Tyra Banks, symbolically handed over her VS wings to Ebanks on her show.
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This Detroit-born beauty was discovered on the streets of New York City by a makeup artist, and quickly ascended the fashion ladder, walking the runway for designers like Isaac Mizrahi and Karl Lagerfeld. Besides appearing in two Spike Lee movies, Webb also made headlines as the first African-American supermodel to win a contact with a major cosmetics company when she signed with Revlon. But despite the whirlwind career (she also served as editor at large of Interview Magazine and as a co-host of Bravo TV’s Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style), the former supermodel currently enjoys a quieter life in the Florida Keys with her husband and two young daughters.
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Beverly Johnson broke barriers as the first American-American woman to appear on the cover of Vogue in 1974. Johnson helped usher in the era of the black supermodel: By 1975, every major American fashion designer had begun using non-white women in shows. In 2005, she was honored at Oprah Winfrey’s Legends Ball along with the likes of other female African-American leaders like Rosa Parks and Tina Turner. She also graced The New York Times’ list of most influential people in the 20th Century.
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Yves Saint Laurent once said, "My dream woman is Iman." Born in Somalia to the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iman is as renowned for her nonprofit work as she is for her contributions to the fashion world. She launched her signature fashion line in 2007, is CEO of IMAN Cosmetics, Skincare & Fragrances, and serves as spokesperson for the Keep a Child Alive program, which provides medication to children and families suffering from HIV/AIDS in developing countries—a role that has won her much recognition in both the fashion and international community. Oh, and she married David Bowie in 1992.
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The Ethiopian model’s big break came in 2000, when Tom Ford offered her an exclusive contract for his Gucci Fall/Winter line—right after the 5-foot-10 stunner became a finalist in the Miss World Supermodel contest. Since then, she’s appeared on American, Italian, Japanese, French, and Spanish Vogue covers, as well as in campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger, Revlon, Dolce & Gabbana, Escada, and Louis Vuitton—just to name a few. She serves as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, and was listed in Forbes as the world's 11th-highest paid model.
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Grace Jones, who was in New York last week performing in several of her characteristically outlandish costumes, was more of a musician than a model during her long career (though that did not stop her from becoming a muse to Andy Warhol and exemplifying the cross-dressing style of the ‘80s). Born the daughter of a preacher in Jamaica, Jones is enigmatic about her role as a pioneer for black women in the industry. "I think I'm doing a service to black women by portraying myself as a sex machine. I mean, what's wrong with being a sex machine, darling?”
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