| Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models |
Book |
|
 |
| List Price | $60.00 |
| Publisher: | Amistad Press (HarperCollins) |
| Author(s) | Barbara Summers |
| Used & new from $7.12 |
Choose from list
|
|
|
|
| Additional reviews |
| Black models are living proof that beauty is more than skin deep. Skin Deep brings readers face to face with some of the most beautiful women in the world: Black models. For the past 50 years they have redefined beauty, fashion, and style in dramatic ways. Each era would exalt its star models: Dorothea Towles, Helen Williams, Naomi Sims, Beverly Johnson, Iman, Naomi Campbell, and Tyra Banks, among them. Less well known are the many other talented, elegant women who enjoyed careers as well. At every level of achievement, however, they all confronted challenges testing their courage, endurance, and integrity.How they succeeded - and sometimes failed - is thecompelling essence of
Skin Deep. Only an insider could tell the story of Black models with the authenticity it deserves. Barbara Summers, a Ford model for 17 years, spent a decade interviewing dozens of models and fashion professionals on three continents to record their experiences. With insight and flair, she gives voice to familiar faces. With an artist's eye, she pored over hundreds of images by the world's most acclaimed photographers to select the more than 250 pictures that make this volume a landmark publication.Black models transformed the fashion industry. Popular culture around the world would never be the same again. Beyond advertisements for clothes and cosmetics, they projected visions of a far more precious but far less tangible product: freedom. |
| Customer reviews |
| The author has spent admirable energy collecting images, interviews, and historical data. But she has been ill-served by her editor and publisher. The text and images are made incoherent by not having been shaped, as if the author's note cards had spilled on to the page in no particular order (a simple chronological narrative might have been best). Sadly, the result is a book about beauty that is not beautiful. The publisher seems not to have hired a book designer; the images neither flow esthetically nor relate integrally to the text. Even the index shows lack of care for the material, with the font unadjusted to distinguish between pages with images and those containing only text. Black beauty deserves better than this. And yet, since this is the only book of its kind, it is still worth buying... It is a joy to see these fantastic women all in one place. Kudos to Barbara Summers for introducing them to each other and to us. |
| This is a first and the most compelling, comprehensive and enligtening book on the subject. I applaud the author and publisher for their vision, tenacity and courage. A must for every library. Kudos!! |
| I was very excited to read this book and I was highly disappointed. The content was great but the editor and author needs to be slapped. The layout was ridiculously confusing, the chapters had no flow, pictures didn't correspond with the stories, some of the interviews bordered on the foolish, etc.... The was a two paragraph mention about black male models. what about children models? What about the effects of we are portrayed in advertisements through history? Where is the history? A chronological timeline? I've read articles in white mags about black models that gave more information that this book. Don't buy it. |
| I loved this book from front to back. It gave me an inside perspective on how black models are treated in the fashion industry. After being brain washed and white washed by dozens of "Vogue," "Glamour," and "Cosmo" magazines, I had lost sight of how beautiful and elegant black models/women are. This is unfortunate but true and can only account for the racist attitudes and standards that Western society (especially America) has against ethnic (African, Asian, Latin, and Native American Indian) beauty. Ethnic beauty is copied and exploited. You can see it in every page of the most popular fashion magazines. I also read Eileen Ford's comment about this book. She was wrong wasn't she. Thank you for writing this book Ms. Summers. It is unquestionably a work of art. |
| Modeling doyenne Eileen Ford once told the author that a book about Black models would be a short one. Skin Deep is most certainly not. This book is filled with the history of beautiful Black women who have made an impact on the world of style. It was a long time coming. |
|
Shopping Cart
| Items in the cart: |
0 item(s) |
$0.00 |
|