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Zusatztext “Her memoir can be a fun ride, giving readers a glimpse into the glamour and hedonism of Manhattan and Hollywood in a bygone era, from her dalliances with legendary lotharios… to her romances…. Johnson’s memoir has moments that are revealing, even harrowing…” Informationen zum Autor Beverly Johnson is an American model, actress, and businesswoman. She made history when she rose to fame as the first black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue in August 1974. She was the star of the OWN reality show "Beverly´s Full House" and was named one of the 20th century´s most influential people in fashion by the New York Times. Leseprobe The Face That Changed It All Foreword Beverly Johnson made history in 1974. Her story is both powerful and unique. She was the first African-American woman, a woman of black skin, whose face appeared on the cover of the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine, the holy grail of style—American Vogue. Since that defining moment in 1974, Beverly has journeyed on in her life with grace, gravitas, and gold-rimmed guts. Beverly Johnson shattered the ideological standards of beauty in a commercial domain, introducing a whole new paradigm not only for black women, but for the world and its acceptance of and response to black beauty as a whole. Beverly should be considered among the most important faces to alter the image of fashion, and the entire cultural dynamic, over the last century. Her staggering influence in that world still looms today. This is the story of an American woman, a role model, and a mentor for so many women, particularly women of color all over the world. And for all of us: I became the first African-American man to break the secret code of the Vogue culture when Anna Wintour named me one of the magazine’s creative directors in 1983. I flew into that gilded cage nine years after Johnson’s historic breakout cover. Beverly becoming the first black woman to grace the cover of Vogue signaled a bold game change in the world of fashion. The year 1974 was a hallmark year because of the courageous decision of Condé Nast and then Vogue editor-in-chief Grace Mirabella to use Beverly’s image on the front of the revered fashion bible. It was all at once a beautiful and triumphant nod to the 1960s—that eventful and fascinating decade of civil rights, women’s liberation, feminism—and a breakdown of the invisible codes of prejudice on the hallowed pages of the gold standard of fashion. And it was only one of the fabulous moments that make Beverly Johnson’s life and narrative so wonderfully rich and so fabulously vivid. Today, Beverly is a strong businesswoman, daughter, mother, grandmother, and a true survivor of life and everything it’s thrown at her along the way. She is a true force of nature—determined, fighting back from the brink of destruction—and to this very day she is still just as elegant and just as beautiful as she was on that now-legendary Vogue cover in 1974. If Beverly’s life were fiction, it would be a great masterpiece from the very grand Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize–winning African-American author. If Ms. Johnson’s life were a film, it would no doubt be directed by Steve McQueen, whose 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2014. Beverly is brutally honest throughout and doesn’t hold back the tears, even when revisiting some truly heartbreaking life events. She is especially introspective when delving into her seriously troubled second marriage, which ended in an ugly divorce and an even uglier child-custody battle, in which she lost her daughter. But she fought back and survived it all with grace and style. In the light of the disco ball, which she aptly calls “smok...
