Naomi Sims was a beautiful woman with chocolate skin that was velvety smooth & she had immaculate facial features.So,it's no wonder that she became the world's first black supermodel.I knew about her from the wig collection that bore her name.
This magnificent trailblazer has passed away at the age of 61.Naomi Sims was a model that overcame obstacles,such as racism.She should really be a role model for all young black women.We all can learn from her class,determination & winning attitude.
Here's more about her struggle from the Telegraph:
"The breakthrough came in 1968, when she was given the cover of the mainstream magazine Ladies' Home Journal. The following year she appeared on the cover of Life magazine. As the designer Halston told The New York Times in 1974: "Naomi was the first. She was the great ambassador for all black people. She broke down all the social barriers."
A handful of black girls had been successful models before her (Dorothea Towles Church, for example, had been a star of the Paris couture shows in the 1950s); but until Naomi Sims came along, none had managed to penetrate the public consciousness. That she did so was entirely due to her determination, forged during a difficult childhood in Pennsylvania.
Naomi Ruth Sims was born at Oxford, Mississippi, on March 30 1948. Her parents divorced soon after her birth, and she never knew her father, who worked as a porter (her mother, however, later confided that he had been "an absolute bum"). Mrs Sims took her three daughters to live in Pittsburgh, but Naomi was subsequently brought up by foster parents. At Westinghouse High School she towered over her fellow pupils, who responded by ostracising her.
Her resolution to make something of her life took Naomi, in 1966, on a scholarship to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, which she combined with night classes in psychology at New York University.
When she decided to become a model, however, her early encounters with the agencies were not encouraging: all turned her down, some taking the trouble to explain that her skin was too dark. Deciding to bypass the agencies altogether, she went directly to fashion photographers – a tactic that paid off when Gosta Peterson, a photographer for The New York Times, agreed to do a shoot for the cover of the newspaper's August 1967 fashion supplement.
While this was a considerable coup, Naomi Sims still found it difficult to get work. Eventually she told Wilhelmina Cooper, a former model who was starting her own agency, that she would send out copies of the The Times's supplement to advertising agencies, attaching Ms Cooper's telephone number; the agency would get a commission if Naomi found any work.
Within a year she was earning $1,000 a week, and appearing in a national television campaign for AT&T wearing the creations of the American designer Bill Blass. "It helped me more than anything else because it showed my face," Naomi Sims told Ladies' Home Journal in 1968. "After it was aired, people wanted to find out about me and use me."
Soon she was also modelling for other eminent designers, such as Halston, Teal Traina, Fernando Sánchez and Giorgio di Sant'Angelo. Black women began to emulate her slicked-back hair style. Her acquaintances included Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol.
By 1972 Hollywood had begun to take an interest in her, and she was offered the title role in the film Cleopatra Jones (1973). She declined after reading the script, which she said was racist in its portrayal of blacks.
In 1969 Naomi Sims had told an interviewer: "There is nothing sadder than an old, broke model, and there are many models who have nothing at the end of their career."
Accordingly, she abandoned modelling after five years to launch a wig-making business for black women. At first she baked synthetic hairs in her oven at home to create the texture of straightened black hair; but within five years her designs, manufactured by the Metropa Company, had annual sales of $5 million."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the article in its entirety here.
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