I was born and grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. I loved every second of my childhood. It was nice to be a latchkey kid; I was on my own a lot. I lived with my mother and grandmother until I was 12, and then I went to live with my father. He was such a true intellectual and Islamic imam.
I was a successful child tap dancer and ran track for the Police Athletic League, but before my last year of junior high school, I decided to walk away from the High School of Performing Arts and go to George W. Wingate High School, which was predominantly white. It was only three years old and designed in such a unique way that I thought it was a calling. I started making friends very quickly; I had a sense of security and self-confidence.
Every year, each grade had to compete against the others and put on a musical, and every year I was nominated by my class to produce it. I also joined the chorus and became the school’s first Black cheerleader. Some of the best basketball players came from our high school, like Roger Brown, so we got to cheer at Madison Square Garden. For a kid to be there—it was huge.
After high school, I moved to Manhattan. It was during the civil-rights movement, and everything was happening: the Black Is Beautiful movement, the Black Panthers, all of that.
I had a job at AT&T but wanted to work in the garment district, so I found one at a custom button factory. I dressed too well to be in the factory all day, so my boss had me make the deliveries to all the design houses. It was a big coat-and-suit business at that time.
Later, I worked at a low-end dress company called Marty Gutmacher, and then at a junior dress company owned by Ruth Manchester and her sister, Sylvia Courtney. They really educated me about the garment business, sales, and retail. While I was there, the designer Willi Smith discovered me on the street and wanted me to model for him. I ultimately became his muse. He introduced me to Bruce Weber, who was becoming a photographer, and eventually I signed with a modeling agency.
I kept a full-time job the entire time I was modeling, because I could never afford not to. Eventually I went to Paris to model for a lot of young companies, like Claude Montana, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Kenzo, and Issey Miyake when Issey first came to Paris. I was a different type of model because I was a new image, and since I loved to entertain, I brought a lot to the runway. Back then, they encouraged models to show their personality.
There was only one time when I doubted myself, and it was at my first runway show, for Chester Weinberg, a top designer at the time. It was like I’d walked into the wrong neighborhood and there was no way I could get out because everyone was watching. It was just that I was a different type of model. That’s not what brown models looked like then; they were a little bit more sophisticated, and I was more edgy. Chester stood behind his decision to have me in the show and made sure that he gave me confidence. I had to go back in front of the audience another two more times, and all I wanted to do was go to the bathroom and hide.
In 1973, I modeled in what’s now known as the Battle of Versailles. The idea behind it was to bring five American designers to Paris and have them compete against five French designers as a benefit to restore the Palace of Versailles. It was a way to expose American designers to Europe and put them on the map. The brainchild behind it was Eleanor Lambert, publicist to all the American designers who participated.
By then, I was working as an assistant to Stephen Burrows, who happened to be one of the hot young designers. He was automatically chosen to participate. Aside from Stephen, there was a lot of drama between the American designers, and it was a cold, grueling experience until the very end. Liza Minnelli was our only entertainment besides us models and some dancers. But we had music, which the French designers hadn’t done before. Joe Eula, who was doing our set designs, had measured everything in feet, not meters. So where we had a blank stage, the French had elaborate sets, Josephine Baker, Rudolf Nureyev, and the Crazy Horse Saloon girls. We went in feeling very insecure about that. But with all that was wrong, it turned out right for us.
When the show came to pass, I watched all of the American designers become a unit. I got on the runway and knocked the ball out of the park; I was one of their strongest walkers. At the end of our performance, everybody threw their programs up in the air for us and screamed, “Bravo! Bravo!” Everything was so different in our presentation, which made us stand out. We only had 10 girls of color, but that was a lot back then. Everyone thinks that what’s happening with diversity in fashion now is all brand-new, but it was starting to happen back then. People like to say that Versailles changed the fashion industry as a whole, but that’s not true. What it did was influence the French to begin casting Black girls.
I started working for a modeling agency based in New York called Click Models in the early ’80s. There was an agency in Paris that wanted me to open a location in New York, but I discovered that they weren’t going to actually make me a partner, so in 1984 I founded Bethann Management. I never wanted to own an agency, but a few models whom I’d worked with at Click were adamant about me being on my own and believed in me.
Of the seven original models we represented, only three were white; everybody else was mixed-race. They included Bonnie Berman, who was the top model of the world at that moment; Ariane Koizumi, who was half Asian and half European and already working for Vogue; Nick Kamen, who was half East Asian and also Scottish; and Tahnee Welch, who is Raquel Welch’s daughter. The agency immediately got a lot of press; it was good that way.
When I built out the roster, I made sure it was integrated and that anybody I wanted would stay. The photographer Steven Meisel used to say, “You’re the only one who has Asians in your agency.” I went with what I was inspired by. I later signed Veronica Webb, Roshumba Williams, and Tyson Beckford.
In 1988, I started the Black Girls Coalition with Iman. I saw how many Black models were coming up at that time. American Elle started to book Black girls and put them on the cover, and it changed the game; it made other agencies want to sign Black girls, and it encouraged competing magazines to start casting them in editorials.
At the same time, I really cared about the homelessness in New York City. I gathered Black models from all different agencies, including Iman, Veronica, Cynthia Bailey, Gail O’Neill, Naomi Campbell, and Garcelle Beauvais, and told them I wanted to do something with them to benefit others by raising money for the homeless. Everyone thinks the BGC was created to help change things surrounding race, but it wasn’t.
When we did our very first fundraiser, everybody came, from Robert De Niro to Michael Jordan. It was a community effort to have a good time, let people see these beautiful Black girls, and let the girls recognize what it’s like to use their celebrity to change someone’s life. It was about selling tickets and raising consciousness about a growing problem. We’d divide the money up and give it to three organizations committed to helping the homeless, including Housing Works; they were also trying to help people with HIV and AIDS.
After the Berlin wall fell in 1989, the fashion business changed. Outside casting directors and stylists became part of the industry, and model scouts were going to Eastern Europe and discovering these beautiful girls that they hadn’t previously been able to access. Those models had a specific body alignment, with long, narrow hips. That’s a designer’s dream. Maybe because I’d come out of that world, I didn’t have any problem with it at first. It’s just that it got to be a thing where it trended for a moment, then an hour, a day, a week, a year, and then years.
Soon, that type of girl was no longer just an aspiration or an inspiration. The girl of color disappeared. There would be one model of color, like an Alek Wek, that everybody wanted to use, but no one else. That was a problem.
I closed my modeling agency in late 1996 after almost 13 years in operation. I spent some time in Mexico but was told I had to return, as the Black model never properly resurfaced. I held a press conference in September of 2007 and then went on to host town-hall meetings month to month when I had the energy. I invited casting directors and model agents and other industry professionals and members of the public to listen to what was going on and see how they could help.
Around the same time, Franca Sozzani, then the editor in chief of Italian Vogue, decided she wanted to do an all-Black issue. She reached out to me and said, “I need you to be part of this. I need to write about you, but I also want you to do me a favor and find me the new girls. I’ll give you 10 pages.” I worked with her son, Francesco, a photographer and filmmaker, and supported that vision.
Still, it was like a ship that was so far out in the middle of the ocean that you couldn’t even get it to turn around. So I started the Diversity Coalition in 2012. Naomi and Iman were both part of it, as were casting directors, hair and makeup professionals, models, agents, and editors. Together, we learned what was happening near and far. My assistant, Catherine Capellan, helped me collect data about how many models of color each designer had in their show over the course of multiple seasons.
I had to change the game immediately, so after Fashion Week in 2013, I wrote a letter naming the fashion houses that were consistently lacking in racial diversity and sent it to Women’s Wear Daily and the four councils of fashion in New York, London, Milan, and Paris. I had to really temper the list because so many designers were at fault.
The following year, in 2014, I received the CFDA Founder’s Award. People used to say to me, “The CFDA needs to recognize you.” I’d go, “Child, the CFDA is not going to take their time to be recognizing me. I’m a rebel.” I wasn’t looking for their attention; I was looking for them to help get shit done right—and they did. I have to admit, I was surprised and very touched.
When I look back at my life, I’m happy that I dared to continue to do things. I didn’t intend to do what I did; it was just a calling. Invisible Beauty has helped me to see how my actions have benefited others. Because of it, I’ve learned to have better respect for myself and to give myself more credit.
Not everyone’s meant to be a leader, but what everyone can do is help change our political situation by giving support to others and, more than anything else, vote. If you help change that, it’ll bleed into some of the things I’ve been advocating for.
Invisible Beauty will be released in theaters September 15th.
