Fashion today wouldn’t look the same without supermodel Beverly Johnson. Since she began her career as a teen in the 1970s, she’s opened doors for Black models and made the industry a more inclusive space.
As the first African-American model to cover Vogue in 1974, Johnson became a pioneer figure. Nearly 50 years later, she continues to advocate for diverse representation in luxury fashion and beauty, using her voice to call out the industry’s racism problem. This past summer, as the Black Lives Matter movement gained global support, Johnson penned an op-ed in The Washington Post expressing how the optics of including Black models on the runway or in campaigns obscures the exclusion of people of color behind-the-scenes.