Naomi Sims

Naomi Sims on Ladies' Home Journal, November 1968 Sims took Black beauty off the fashion pages and into the mainstream American household magazine. Her November 1968 Ladies' Home Journal cover was followed by Life in 1969 and Cosmopolitan in 1973, a run that showed publishers a Black cover star could sell to a general readership. What makes her more than a cover count is what came next: she retired from modeling in 1973 and built a beauty products range for Black women, turning the gap she had experienced as a model into a business.