INSPIRATIONAL Saturday morning read:

The information below is from a New York Times article by Eric Wilson. This article was so inspiring to me, it's the perfect Saturday morning read. So grab your cup of joe, tea, or some orange juice and enjoy.

Naomi Sims, whose appearance as the first black model on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal in November 1968 was a consummate moment of the Black is Beautiful movement, and who went on to design successful collections of wigs and cosmetics for black women under her name, died Saturday of cancer in Newark.

Ms. Sims is sometimes referred to as the first black supermodel.“Naomi was the first,” the designer Halston told The New York Times in 1974.
“She was the great ambassador for all black people. She broke down all the social barriers.”
Ms. Sims often said childhood insecurities and a painful upbringing — living in foster homes, towering over her classmates and living in a largely poor white neighborhood in Pittsburgh — had inspired her to strive to become “somebody really important” at a time when cultural perceptions of black Americans were being challenged by the civil rights movement and a renewed stress on racial pride.

When Ms. Sims arrived in New York on a scholarship to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1966, there was very little interest in fashion for black models and only a handful who had been successful, like Dorothea Towles Church, who starred in the couture shows in 1950s Paris, and Donyale Luna, who was named Vogue’s model of the year in 1966.


In need of money, Ms. Sims, with her heart-shaped face and long limbs, was encouraged by classmates and counselors to give it a try. But every agency she approached turned her down, some telling her that her skin was too dark.
Undeterred, Ms. Sims decided to approach photographers herself. Gosta Peterson, a photographer for The Times, agreed to photograph her for the cover of its August 1967 fashion supplement, then called Fashions of The Times.

The agencies were still not interested, so Ms. Sims, showing a dash of enterprise that would later define her career, told Wilhelmina Cooper, a former model who was starting her own agency, that she would send out copies of the magazine to advertising agencies with Ms. Cooper’s number attached. Ms. Cooper could have a commission if anyone called back.

Within a year, Ms. Sims was earning $1,000 a week and had been hired for a national television campaign for AT&T, which showed her and two other models — one white and one Asian — wearing fashions by Bill Blass.

“It helped me more than anything else because it showed my face,” Ms. Sims told Ladies’ Home Journal the following year, when she appeared on its cover, the first time a black model was featured so prominently in a mainstream women’s publication. “After it was aired, people wanted to find out about me and use me.” Ms. Sims was suddenly in high demand, modeling for top designers like Halston, Teal Traina, Fernando Sánchez and Giorgio di Sant’Angelo, and standing at the vanguard of a fashion movement for black models that would give rise to runway stars of the 1970s, including Pat Cleveland, Alva Chinn and Beverly Johnson.
‘Black is Beautiful’
Two images of Ms. Sims — one from the 1967 Times fashion magazine cover and the other from a 1969 issue of Life — are in the current Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “The Model as Muse.” In a catalog, the curators Harold Koda and Kohle Yohannan wrote, “The beautifully contoured symmetry of Sims’s face and the lithe suppleness of her body presented on the once-exclusionary pages of high-fashion journals were evidence of the wider societal movement of Black Pride and the full expression of ‘Black is Beautiful.’ ” But Ms. Sims, in interviews, often said she held the industry in low regard because of the way male executives treated her and, more generally, she said, “because people have the idea that models are stupid.”

After five years, she gave up modeling and started a wig-making business with styles designed for black women. It eventually expanded into a multimillion-dollar beauty empire and at least five books on modeling and beauty.

http://55secretstreet.typepad.com/photos/virtu/naomisimscosmocover.jpghttp://jameyhatley.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/naomi.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/8/9/1249833314792/Naomi-Sims-001.jpg

One of the posts that I got the most "off-line" feedback on is the moving towards one's destiny and after reading this story, I knew I had to post it, not only because this trailblazer just passed, but because this is a story about walking in your destiny. It's about continuing when everyone says that you can't or shouldn't, it's about moving in a direction away from what other's wanted for you, and going towards your dreams - and once you have succeeded continuing to evolve. This woman only lived until she was 61, but she accomplished more than most, because she refused to let OTHER'S DEFINE HER DESTINY!

This Saturday morning reading was just what the Dr. ordered for me - I hope you are all inspired. Thank you so much, Naomi Sims.

Love,
Shelby S.

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