Vintage Covers: Interview Magazine 12/72 Andy Warhol and Naomi Sims

The American Society of Fashion Editors voted this cover as one of the "40 Greatest Magazine Covers of the Past 40 Years" back in 2005.

Naomi Sims was a popular model before I started consuming fashion magazines so I don't know much about her. I will share however, that her skincare line was among the first department store skin care products that I ever purchased.

I recall being stunned as a high school student to discover it being carried by Nordstrom. The saleslady didn't even get half-way through her spiel before I agreed to purchase the kit. It cost me a whopping $65 which was a lot considering that The Colonel only paid something like $3.15/hr at the fried chicken emporium that was my after school job.

I can't remember it doing anything miraculous to my skin but I sure felt sophisticated using her products when I went away to college. You couldn't talk to me when I was in the mirror rubbing that potion into my fat cheeks, because I was the shit.

I wonder if they're even still making that stuff...

ETA: It is still being made

Summer's Bare Necessities

This is truly a unique editorial and is one of my all time favorites. It features Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and Beverly Peele and was photographed by Patrick Demarchelier for American Vogue, May 1992.
Source: scanned by hfgl

1969 - Black Models Grace Fashion Magazine Covers for the 1st Time

(L to R)

Jane Hoffman - Cosmo - June, 1969
Daphne Maxwell - Glamour - October, 1969*
Elizabeth of Toro - Harper's Bazaar - November, 1969
Jolie Jones - Madamoiselle - March, 1969

It's funny how much things change and how much they stay the same. I wonder what kind of future I would have imagined had I been coming of age in the late 1960s.

* Katiti Kironde was technically the first black wman to appear on the cover in August, 1968 but she was a college student and not a model.

Harper's Bazaar - Donyale Luna

Harper's Bazaar was the first US fashion magazine to feature the image of a Black woman on its cover in January 1965. The woman Donyale Luna, who was described as having "the tall strength and pride movement of a Masai warrior."

When she came onto the scene in the mid 1960's she was Fashion writer Bill Cunningham wrote:

The white model dominated fashion world is confronted by the first ethereal African queen image. Her body moves like a panther, her arms, the wings of an exotic bird, the long neck suggests a black trumpet swan...It is the birth of a new fashion era.

Although filled with the usual "exotic other" stereotypes, at the time this was mighty high praise for the model to receive in mainstream press. She would go onto to become the first model of African descent to appear on the cover of British Vogue.

It's unfortunate that the "new era" that Luna ushered forth didn't produce a long lasting career for the model herself as she was unable to escape her own personal demons.

Blast from the Past: Beverly Johnson, Louise Vyent & Iman (1989) for Revlon

Source: Soulstyle/Omifan

Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes for Calvin Klein 2000

Source: Davidtoc