The Hidden Style Icons in History
The first "material girl" - as she called herself - was not Madonna, it was Eartha Mae Kitt (1927). Known for her indomitable character, the American jazz singer and cabaret star pursued an extensive recording and film career, in addition to briefly participating as Catwoman in the Batman television series in the 1960s.
Once hailed as “the most exciting woman in the world,” her name might not be the first you think of. Because she was publicly vocal, she was blocked out of public consciousness, but today she is slowly being recognised as the star that she was.
Her story is one that is seeped in bravery yet heartbreak. She was conceived out of wedlock and was born in the cotton fields of South Carolina. Her mother was of African American and Cherokee descent, with the identity of her father unknown to this day. Abandoned by her mother, she arrived in Harlem at age nine. At age 15, she dropped out of high school to work in a Brooklyn factory. As a teenager, she lived between friends' houses and the subway. However, in the 1950s she managed to escape poverty thanks to her talent for singing and dancing. And fame ensued: she performed with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe On a European tour, had her own "solo" at a Paris nightclub and became the sensation in Broadway
Eartha and French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy met several times in Paris for her fittings 1961. Eartha had come to see Givenchy in Paris to try on a tight dress, and Tony Vaccaro captured that moment. She was tied to romances with the cosmetics magnate Charles Revson and heir to the banking world, John Barry Ryan III. Her fondness for luxury was excessive.
In 1968 she was invited to a banquet at the White House. Apparently, the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson asked her opinion about the Vietnam War. She did not bite her tongue and replied, "They are sending the best in this country to be shot dead." She paid for it with exile from the country for several years.
The style icon that Hollywood has forgotten. American singer and actress, she was the first woman of color to be nominated for Best Actress at the 1955 Oscars and became a symbol of power for the community. Her dress - with a wide neckline, light train and gloves - is a statement of elegance and sophistication.
Dorothy Dandridge (1922) shinesin the musical Carmen Jones dressed in a red skirt, a shirt with a large neckline and gold earrings that María Félix would envy. She plays a femme fatale at a factory in North Carolina. For this role she copied covers such as that of LIFE magazine. She was also the first woman of color to achieve that.
In 1959 another of her best moments came with the musical Porgy and Bess , in whichs he shares the limelight with Sidney Poitier and for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. She died suddenly at the age of 42, losing the possibility of eclipsing actresses like Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn.
Dorothy's mother, Ruby, was five months pregnant when she left her husband Cyril, carrying her oldest daughter, Vivian, with her. Dorothy and Vivian demonstrated an early talent for singing and dancing and began performing in local theaters and churches when Dorothy was 5 years old. In 1937, they had a small role in the Marx Brothers movie, A Day at the Races.
She was played by Halle Berry in the HBO movie Dorothy Dandridge in 1999.
The ebony goddess. It was 1925 and Josephine Baker stunned the world with her naked torso, a skirt of sixteen bananas, and a dance close to comedy at the Music Hall on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. She was modern, daring, and the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of The Tropics.
A mainstay of the 1920s Paris expat scene, she was the most photographed woman of the 1920s and broke all the stereotypes of her time. Charismatic, she displayed absolute freedom for bodily and spiritual expression. TIME magazine included her as "inspiring muse" in its list of All-Time Top 100 Fashion Icons, along with Brigitte Bardot, The Beatles and Jacqueline Kennedy. With her pencil-thin brows, slicked-back hair, and dark lips, she epitomized the beauty aesthetic of the Jazz age.
Joséphine (norn 1906) was forced to work from the age of 8 and had to leave school at 13. To help with the family income, she worked as a housekeeper under a woman who had no qualms about mistreating her. At age 15 she got her first job as a dancer. Already then she had divorced her first husband - she married at 13 for the first time - and married again to Willie Baker, a blues guitarist from whom she also divorced soon after, although she kept her last name.
She inspired writers like Ernest Hemingway and artists like Pablo Picasso. She appeared in a movie called Zou-Zou and became the first black woman to have a starring role in a feature film. They nicknamed her The Bronze Venus, The Black Pearl and The Ebony Goddess. In 1927 she was the highest paid entertainer in all of Europe and rivaled Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford.
Baker returned to the United States with the intention of fighting for integration against racial discrimination. In 1963 she participated in the Washington March as the only female speaker to officially address the crowd, which she described as "salt and pepper, just what it should be." She demanded her performances were mixed to support integration and fight segregation. Coretta Scott King offered her the role of unofficial leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in 1968 after the murder of her husband, Martin Luther King, but rejected her in bids of helping the French resistance during World War II.
Remember the iconic playboy bunny costume? Meet the designer behind it. Zelda Valdes was the first black fashion designer to open her own store in Broadway (NY) in 1948, and has dressed Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee, Mae West, and many more.
Zelda had her first foray in fashion as a child creating clothes for her dolls, cutting patterns from newspapers. She learned the noble trade of tailoring from her grandmother and also worked in her uncle's tailor shop. She quickly gained a reputation for glamourising women, which caught the attention of Hugh Hefner, who hired her to design the first Playboy bunny costume in the 1950s.
She helped fashion history with the formation of the National Association of Fashion and Accessories Designers for those who were interested in pursuing a career in the industry. She also designed the uniforms for the Harlem Dance Theater.
Dorothea Towles was the very first African-American model to work for couture houses in Paris. Birn in 1922 in Texas, she traveled to Los Angeles after her mother's death in the early 1940s and enrolled at Dorothy Ferrier Modeling School, where she was the first black student.
In 1949, she followed his older sister, Lois, to France. She soon fell in love with the city, and found several modelling opportunities and sold her ticket back to the United States. French designers loved her short waist and long legs.
The well-known couturier Christian Dior was the first to hire her. Working with other models from around the world, she helped Dior to internationalize their fashion. She was one of the models chosen to make Dior's revolutionary "New Look" popular. And, we have no doubt, she also captivated his clients during the parades. She also worked for Elsa Schiaparelli.
After her great success in France, Dorothea decided to return to the United States. Life for her would not be as open and free as it had been in Europe, but the fact that she worked with some of the most famous designers in Paris helped make fashion more inclusive in America.
