First Or Last?

THE IMAGIST ASKS why "Why Has There Been No Black Male 'Supermodel' Since Tyson Beckford?"

Is that strictly true? There might not be one top dog supermodel now, but isn't Tyson Beckford remembered as THE black male supermodel precisely because he was the first black male supermodel?

Names like Wendell Lissimore, Oraine Barrett, Dominique Hollington, Marcus Lloyd, Salieu Jalloh, Shaun Sutton and Marcus Patrick are all familiar names, and they regularly appear on these pages.

Rather than being the last of his kind, as The Imagist suggests, I'd argue that Beckford was merely the first of his kind...


Previously: Tyson Beckford Does London, and more.

3 comments:

  1. Unknown26 January, 2009 13:37

    I agree there is more water left in the well

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  2. Moanerplicity26 January, 2009 20:26

    I think to become a SUPER-anything you have to have NAME recognition. It always helps to be the FIRST black, brown, yellow, red to do or accomplish something. Tyson managed to do that by being a FACE/BODY of those Ralph Lauren ads back in the day along with appearing on the cover of mainstream mags that weren't strictly fashion mags (like the Essence cover, proclaiming him as The FIRST BLACK MALE SUPERMODEL, or such such ish).

    Truthfully, I don't follow fashion w/ such a frenzy, so other than Marcus Patrick, who I've had some back & forth with, I have no idea who those other cats are by name-- only by face.

    And maybe I'm showing my age here (LOL), but to my mind the first Black male supermodel was a cat named Renauld White, whose face & body was on EVERYTHING from mag covers, Times Square billboards, to city buses in the 80s. He was also the first male model whose NAME I actually knew because he was the FIRST BLACK cat on the cover of GQ. And to his cred, though he's old enough to be a grandad to some of the new-jacks in the biz, he's still working today.

    Google him sometime and become aware of his face & history.

    So maybe Supermodeldom also equates to one's longevity. *ponder*

    One.

    ReplyDelete
  3. KAOS29 January, 2009 11:55

    Back and forth with Marcus Patrick huh? I think we'd *all* love to hear about that. ;)

    I googled Renauld White but photos were nigh on impossible to find, and decent ones non-existent. Was he really as big a name as Tyson Beckford was in the 90s (and continues to be)?

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