Without Pat Cleveland, there would be no Iman, Naomi, or Tyra. Earlier this week, the black fashion icon Pat celebrated a milestone. Let’s all say happy birthday to the original ’70s superstar, Pat Cleveland.
Her modeling career began by accident in 1967, and she was one of the first black models to achieve recognition on the catwalk. Pat rose to fame during the civil rights era with her ground-breaking career.
Pat was born June 23, 1950, in New York City to a white father and a black mother. Cleveland’s mother, Lady Bird, is best known as an artist whose work depicted African American culture beginning in the 1940s. At fourteen years old, Pat was on her way to design classes at LaGuardia Performing Arts High School and was discovered for her style on a New York subway by Carrie Donovan.
Carrie, an assistant editor at Vogue, invited Pat to tour the headquarters. The magazine published a feature about her as an up-and-coming young designer. From there, in 1966, Pat was selected by an African American lifestyle magazine, Ebony, to model for their annual Fashion Fair national runway tour. During Pat’s time touring in the South, the group experienced a terrifying run-in with the Klu Klux Klan.
As evident with the George Floyd protests, racism is still a problem. In the 1960s, Pat became disillusioned by racism in the United States and moved to Paris. At that time, she declared she wouldn’t return until a black model starred on the cover of Vogue.
While living in Paris, Cleveland worked with Vogue illustrator Antonio Lopez and became a house model for Karl Lagerfeld. She modeled for designers such as Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, and Christian Dior. In 1973, Pat was one of the ten black models in the epic Battle of Versailles fashion show.
True to her word, Pat returned to the United States in 1974 after Beverly Johnson, featured in Vogue, broke the fashion glass ceiling. While back in the native New Yorker, I continued modeling in the 1980s. She also established a modeling agency in Milan, Italy, and published a volume of poetry in 2001 called The Spirit of Grace and her 2016 memoir, Walking with the Muses.
In 2003, Cleveland returned to the fashion runway, walking for designers Bill Blass and Stephen Burrows and at Chanel with her daughter, Anna van Ravenstein. Pat also modeled with her daughter for designer Zac Posen in 2013.
Ms. Cleveland paved the way for many others, as pictured in the iconic 2001 photo by Annie Leibovitz. Today, there are generations of beauties modeling the catwalks. André Talley once called her “the Josephine Baker of ’70s runway modeling,” an apt tribute to her dazzling runway style.
It’s worth noting that before Pat Cleveland, the evolution of the black model included pioneers Dorethea Church, Helen Williams, Donyale Luna, and Naomi Sims. According to fashion historians, Donyale Luna was the first black woman to appear on British Vogue in 1966, after a sketch of her appeared on Harper’s Bazaar in January 1965.
Encountering racism never stopped Pat from pursuing her dreams. “My grandmother was one of the first black women to graduate from Spelman College – she was a slave and an orphan,” “So when you think of your history, you cannot succumb to ‘oh, I’m no good because somebody says the palette is not right for that.’ You have to march through.”
After a colon cancer diagnosis in 2019, Pat is still a fighter after surviving six decades in fashion. The 5’10” beauty lives in Willingboro, New Jersey, with her husband, Paul van Ravenstein, of 38 years. Stay well, Pat.
As always, thank you for reading. Have a fantastic week, stay safe, and wear your mask. Corona is resurging.
