American fashion model, writer and educator (1944–2014
Barbara Summers (September 6, 1944 – November 2014)[1][2][3] was an American writer and educator who had also had a long and successful career as a fashion model, working for 17 years with Ford Models, one of America's top agencies.[4][5] Her 1998 book, Skin Deep – the story of Black models in America and abroad – is a definitive work on black women in the modeling industry.[6] for which she spent more than a decade interviewing fashion professionals on three continents to record their experiences.[4]
Biography
Education and career
Barbara Gene Summers was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Don and Lucy Summers,[7] the second of her parents' five children.[8] In her own words: "My wonderful, hard-working father used to call me Daughter #2. He and my mother had 4 girls before their one and only son arrived."[9] She grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where her family moved in 1949.[8] She graduated from Weaver High School in 1963[8] and then went to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a B.A. degree. She subsequently did graduate studies at Yale University and then the University of Paris at the Sorbonne,[1] where she "promptly became a grad school dropout and a lifelong Francophile".[9] After living in Paris, she moved to Puerto Rico and Haiti, staying there for several years[8] with her husband Marc Albert and their son.[6][10] Back in New York City, she began her career as a model while working as a college instructor, and she latterly returned to academia, teaching at Hostos Community College in the Bronx.[3][8]
As a writer and editor, she published works including I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America (1989), Nouvelle Soul: Short Stories (1992), The Price You Pay (a novel set in the world of modeling,[11] 1993), Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models (1998), Black and Beautiful: How Women of Color Changed the Fashion Industry (2001), and Open the Unusual Door: True-Life Stories of Challenge, Adventure, and Success by Black Americans (2005). Her most notable writing is her 1998 book Skin Deep, which explores the role of African-American models within the fashion industry and the emergence of black designers, and "presents a fascinating portrait of black supermodels",[1][12] including profiles of Dorothea Towles, Beverly Johnson, Iman, Barbara Cheeseborough, and others. The book was described in The Crisis as "an amazingly comprehensive history ... an inspiring read and a delight to own."[13]
Summers wrote of herself: "In the surprising adventure that is my life, I have been a Ford fashion model, a world traveler, a teacher, a writer and editor, a lover, wife, and mother, a sister to several, a good friend to many. I define myself as an artist. Artists are charged with the special responsibility not just to speak truth but to sing it. I believe: *We are all related - literally. *While politicians, terrorists, and maniacs of power strive mightily to prove otherwise, war is not the answer. Love is."[9]
She died unexpectedly in 2014 at the age of 70.[8]
Personal life
Barbara Summers' son is the animator/producer Kimson Albert.[6] She was also survived by her sisters, Lucy Summers and Dona Carter, and brother Don Summers, her elder sister Sandy Head having predeceased her.[8]
