Fashion Nostalgia: The Ebony Fashion Fair Traveling Fashion Show

Eunice Johnson and Ebony Fashion Fair models at 33rd show.

The Ebony Fashion Fair traveling fashion show is a major part of black fashion history.  What started as a mini fashion show and charity event, conceived by up by Mrs. Jessie Covington Dent, wife of Dr. Albert W. Dent, former president emeritus of Dillard University in New Orleans, to raise money for the Women’s Auxiliary of Flint-Goodrich Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1958, later became Ebony Fashion Fair.  All spearheaded by Mrs. Eunice Johnson, wife of Mr. John H. Johnson, publisher, chairman and CEO of Johnson Publishing Co., which publishes Ebony magazine and published Jet magazine until 2014. 

Ebony Fashion Fair models pose on the cover of Ebony Magazine in 1961.

That first show was so successful that the Johnsons decided to take it on a cross-country tour to benefit other worthy charities. Ten cities hosted the first traveling Ebony Fashion Fair show.  The theme was “Ebony Fashion Fair Around The Clock” and featured four female models.  Tickets went for $3.50 to $12, with 50 percent of earnings going to scholarships.  It was wildly popular among black communities, especially the black wealthy and elite.

Advertisement for 1963 Ebony Fashion Fair.

The groundbreaking traveling show spanned a half century, visited 200 cities across the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, raising over $50 million for charity.  It ended in 2010 with the death of Mrs. Johnson at age 93. The fashion tour was a pioneer in using African American models on the runway and helped highlight the works of African-American designers.

 

Through Ebony Fashion Fair, Mrs. Johnson introduced haute couture to black communities, including such designers as Christian Dior, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Missoni, Emanuel Ungaro, Vivienne Westwood, and Bob Mackie in her shows, worn by mostly black models.

Eunice Johnson with model in Valentino.

Model in a Bob Mackie wedding gown...wowza!

A fashion icon in her own right, Mrs. Johnson was one of the first black people to sit in the front row at the Paris, New York and Milan couture shows.  She and her husband were met with much resistance when they began traveling to Europe to buy for their shows because white designers didn’t see a necessity for black women to wear their designs.  According to Mr. Johnson, the two had to “beg, persuade, and threaten to get the right to buy clothes.”  

Johnson sitting front row at Pauline Trigère show, 1971.

Johnson and Karl Lagerfeld, 1975.

Johnson and Yves Saint Laurent in 1973.

In the early 1980s, André Leon Talley, Vogue magazine contributing editor, traveled with Johnson to Paris to shop for her shows.

Talley with Johnson, Yves Saint Laurent in background.

Pat Cleveland got her start as an Ebony Fashion Fair model at age 15.  Actor Richard Roundtree and Janet Langhart Cohen, media mogul and spouse of former Defense Secretary William Cohen, were also former Ebony Fashion Fair models.

Johnson and Pat Cleveland

Cleveland on a 1973 Ebony Fashion Fair advertisement.

Pat Cleveland

Richard Rountree walking the runway for Ebony Fashion Fair in the late 60s.

Johnson would spend upwards of a million dollars a year on clothing for her shows.  Although much of the clothes featured in Ebony Fashion Fair were from white designers, Johnson added black designers such as Stephen Burrows, Patrick Kelly, Willi Smith and B. Michael, as well as L’Amour, Quinton de Alexander, Kevan Hall, Fusha, Anthony Hankins, and even the Steve Harvey Collection.

Stephen Burrows dress

Patrick Kelly dress

The first time I saw couture up close and personal was at the Ebony Fashion Fair show in the 80s.

The annual show was making an appearance in my hometown, and my godmother – a member of the Links, Incorporated and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. – got me and my sisters tickets to the show.  She knew how much I loved fashion, and like my mother, encouraged and cultivated that love.

I was ecstatic to the point of bursting at the opportunity to see women who looked like me wearing haute couture that I had only daydreamed about while reading my Vogue, Ebony, and Essence magazines.

Mom always made sure we were dressed to the nines, even in a one income household and four (and soon five) kids to outfit.  That evening I wore a satin white and pastel floral jacket and skirt set and a white blouse with pearl buttons and a pussy bow at the neck…it was my favorite outfit.  I felt super glamorous.  

It is a moment in my personal history that I will always remember and one that helped shape my interest in fashion – not just the superficial beauty of the clothes and the models – but the workmanship; the concepts and inspiration; the tailoring, bead work and embroidery; and most important, that African Americans were included in the conversation of fashion culture and fashion history.

Emanuel Ungaro evening dress, fall/winter 1987-1988...I wanted to get married in this dress!!!