“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.” - Andre Leon Talley on Beverly Johnson
i learned about Marion Stokes, a Philadelphia woman who began taping whatever was on television in 1979 and didn’t stop until her death in 2012.. The 71,000 VHS and Betamax tapes she made are the most complete collection preserving this era of TV. They are being digitized by the Internet Archive. (x)
my obsession with placing such high value on my aesthetic and physical form versus my desire to hide my identity and profile and live entirely in secret