THE BEAUTY PIONEER: Black beauty Helen Williams was the first African American fashion model to cross over into the mainstream, rising to fame in Paris and New York in late 1950s and early 1960s. She is one of many African American fashion models featured in Ben Arogundade's book, Black Beauty.
HELEN WILLIAMS WAS THE FIRST female African American fashion model to break into the mainstream.
But it was the French, rather than the Americans, that embraced her. By Ben Arogundade.
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TOO BLACK And Too Pretty FOR FASHION
With her trademark bouffant wig, sculpted eyebrows and long, giraffe-like neck, Williams worked exclusively for African American magazines such as Ebony and Jet.
PERFECT IN PARIS
But that was America. The French, by contrast, held a very different view of black beauty, and by 1960 Williams had moved to Paris. “Over there I was ‘La Belle Americaine,’” she said proudly. She modelled in the famous ateliers of designers Christian Dior and Jean Dessès. By the end of her tenure she was making a staggering $7,500 a year working part-time, and she’d received three marriage proposals from French admirers, one of whom kissed her feet and murmured, “I worship the ground you walk on, mademoiselle.”
MODEL BEHAVIOUR
After Paris, Williams returned to America, where things had not changed at all for dark-skinned African American models. While searching for a new agent in New York City, she once waited two hours in the reception of one agency, only to be told that they had “one black model already, thanks.” But Williams never-say-die attitude meant that she would not take no for an answer. “I was pushy and positive,” she said. Undeterred at being rejected, the young beauty took her case to the press. Influential white journalists Dorothy Kilgallen and Earl Wilson took up her cause, drawing attention to beauty’s continuing exclusion of black models. This opened things up for Williams, who was then booked for a flurry of ads for brands such as Budweiser, Loom Togs and Modess, which crossed over for the first time into the mainstream press, in titles such as The New York Times, Life and Redbook. By 1961 her hourly rate had shot up to $100 an hour. Fashion’s lily-white membrane had finally been breached.
BREAKING THE FASHION BARRIER
It was a pivotal moment in black beauty history, as Williams’s success broke the tradition for only using light-skinned models. “Elitists in our group would laugh at somebody if they were totally black,” said model-turned-agent Ophelia DeVore. “And when she [Williams] came along she was very self-conscious because she was dark. She gave people who were black the opportunity to know that if they applied themselves they could reach certain goals.” Williams was the first beauty to break the four hundred year chain that had branded dark skin as ugly.
Above; Helen Williams was amongst the first African American fashion models to feature in specialist print advertising for cigarettes, alcohol and cosmetics, aimed at America's emerging black middle class.
