History: “Fashion Fair” Black, Bold, Beautiful & Fabulous Black Women. It was a Bold & Radical concept at a time when segregation was still the norm & black women were very much excluded from the realm of high fashion. The Fashion Fair models were mostly unknown girls who ranged in age from late teens to early 20s, they were specifically cast for their strength and presence. “You had to work it,” says Audrey Adams, model in 1975 season. “Be fabulous. And if you weren’t fabulous, [Johnson] would take that outfit away and give it to somebody who could carry it.” Eunice Johnson was the brainchild & Founder of Ebony Fashion Fair. It started as a section in Ebony Magazine showcasing the best styles of the season on African-American models. Fashion Fair made the transition from the magazine to the catwalk in 1958, when Ebony was asked to produce a runway show to benefit a New Orleans hospital. The event was such a success that it traveled to 10 cities that year. Johnson Publishing paid for the venues & local African-American charities—churches, sororities, chapters of the Urban League—were responsible for selling tickets. The company deducted the cost of a subscription to Jet or Ebony from each ticket sale, & the rest went back to the nonprofits, ultimately raising $55 million for numerous charities over the years. Eunice Johnson was determined to introduce African-American Women to the very best from the European runways as well as to the work of America’s top designers. It was no small feat. The Civil Rights Movement was in full force, and many designers weren’t thrilled with the idea of seeing their clothes on black models. Still, Johnson’s cold calls to European designers asking for invitations to their shows were not always well received. “Valentino once told us we couldn’t come to his show,” But, Johnson held a powerful trump card: CASH, and a lots of it. She was looking to buy, not borrow, purchasing up to 200 looks a season “If you look at some of the photographs from the ’60s and ’70s, you see that Eunice is alone in a sea of white buyers.” Also, her models were having problems finding makeup to match their skin tones, so she created the Fashion Fair cosmetics line in 1973. It was wildly successful-Aretha Franklin appeared in the ads. Also, in the early days, models encountered an even more violent strain of the racism than Johnson faced on buying trips to Europe. Pat Cleveland, who was 14 when she did the fair in 1965, recalls some “hairy” times “There was a riot outside our hotel. People were walking around with torches and saying, ‘We don’t want niggers staying in the center of town.’ It was horrible. There were times when we had to leave town quickly because we were being harassed by the Ku Klux Klan. Our bus driver was a retired Marine, and he had a pistol and a rifle.” But the shows, by everyone’s recollection, were utter magic. Akin to Broadway spectacles in choreography and entertainment value, they were two-hour stage pieces, complete with an intermission. “The models literally danced down the aisles, strutted and flung and turned, taking off a coat and doing a 360-degree turn and then snapping it over their shoulders,” says Rogers, who attended her first show when she was a teenager in New Orleans. “You could just hear the crowd go, ‘Ahhh.’” Says Cleveland: “It was like the Harlem Globetrotters meets Cirque du Soleil.” When Eunice Johnson passed away in 2010 at 93, the shows passed with her. But now, after a four-year hiatus, Rogers and Johnson Rice have decided to reignite the flame. In the fall, they will debut a new Ebony Fashion Fair, starting with just one or two cities and featuring a mix of archival pieces and contemporary looks. “The goal is, again, a celebration of fashion, of people coming together,” says Rogers, who will also relaunch the fair’s makeup line. “We are the curators of African-American fashion history, and we’re going to continue in that vein.” We Need to Get this Pride in Our Beautiful Black Women Back, We Once Again Need to Be Black, Bold, Beautiful & Fabulous. Can We Do It?.....This is Just My 2 Cents... Reference:wmagazine/fashion/2013/03/eunice-johnson-ebony-magazine/
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 16:37:29 +0000
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