The Beauty of Retrospect: Cynthia King Week, Part Three

Cynthia King was in such great demand as a model, some advertisers couldn't get enough of her. Look at this photo from a cigarette ad s...

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Model/author Barbara Summers

Barbara Summers had had a long and distinguished modeling career by the time she wrote "Skin Deep," a history of black fashion models like herself. Her portfolio included ads for clients such as Avon; the picture below is originally from an Avon ad.


Ms. Summers got into modeling by accident. The New England native was teaching French at a small college in Manhattan when she agreed to a shoot for a Mademoiselle article about clothes for professional women . . . like college instructors. Soon she was one of the busiest models in the profession.

As an author, she put out a collection of short stories, "Nouvelle Soul," and wrote a novel, "The Price You Pay." Ms. Summers also edited Brian Lanker's monograph book on famous black women, "I Dream A World." Her book "Skin Deep," published in 1998, is considered a definitive history of black women in modeling.


All three of these pictures - including the one above, in which Barbara Summers poses with her son Kimson - are from "Skin Deep."

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