Keepingitreal

Behind the Scenes: Swagga Digital Magazine Making of Spring Issue

Swagga Digital HD Magazine Behind the Scenes from Ron Fulcher on Vimeo.

Highlights from one of many photo shoots, behind the scenes on the making of the Spring 2010 Issue, This segment photography is Duane Cramer shooting his layouts.

Say it Loud Fashion Show February 27, 2010

 

Behind the Scenes: Swagga Digital Magazine Making of Spring Issue

The Makeup Show LA

Events

Bringing together the best talent the industry has to offer, The Makeup Show LA will provide attendees with inspiration and education in many forms.

Artists from Film and Television, Editorial and Fashion, Theater and FX as well as leaders in education and business will all be on hand to present special seminars and demonstrations from every area of makeup artistry will ensure two motivation-filled days of intense learning. Please note that presenters and scheduled times of all events are subject to change without notice.

The Makeup Show LA is now offering 101 Education Class and Understanding Photography
For anyone just getting started or interested in pursuing a career in makeup, Makeup and photography 101 is the perfect introduction to the world of professional makeup artistry and understanding makeup for photography. we’ll take you through the entire process of creating a flawless beauty makeup, help you understand your product and tools, and how to design and create a perfect makeup application for every job.
Saturday February 27, for detail of the class click here

Show Floor Events
Two intimate classroom areas provide space for up to 60 seated attendees to watch exhibitor demonstrations right on the main floor of the show. Open to all show attendees, on a first come first serve basis.
Main Floor Seminar

Hands-on Workshops
The LA Makeup Show Hands-on Workshops are located on the show floor area.
Sunday February 28 Hands-on Workshops
Monday March 1 Hands-on Workshops

Keynote and Business Forum
The Keynote and Business Forum is located on the show floor area and is complimentary to The Makeup Show LA attendees.
Keynote and Business Forum

California Market Center
110 East 9th Street,
Penthouse / 13th floor
Los Angeles, CA 90079

 To receive updates on The Make Up Show, click here.
For The Makeup Show Photo Gallery, click here.

Swagga Magazine Online

Swagga Digital Magazine

Arts & Culture: Eunice Walker Johnson

Eunice Walker Johnson
(April 4, 1916 - January 3, 2010)

By Margena A. Christian Mrs. Eunice Johnson, producer and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair and secretary-treasurer of Johnson Publishing Company, died of renal failure at her home in Chicago. She was 93. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will honor her work on January 11 as a philanthropist and fashion icon. The tribute, planned some time ago, was several months in the making.“Mrs. Johnson elevated the image of Black women being fashion conscious, fashion forward and affluent,” said Kenneth Owen, assistant producer of Ebony Fashion Fair, who was handpicked by the fashion pioneer 26 years ago to work alongside her.  Born on April 4, 1916 in Selma, Ala., Mrs. Johnson came from a prestigious family. Her sophistication and fashion sense wasn’t bought. She was born with it. Mrs. Johnson’s father, Dr. Nathaniel D. Walker, was a doctor who practiced medicine for five decades, while her mother, Ethel McAlpine Walker, taught education and art at Selma University. The institution was founded by Dr. William H. McAlpine, her maternal grandfather, who also founded the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc. and was close friends with Booker T. Washington.Education was important in the Johnson household. She graduated from Talladega College with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in art. A master’s degree was later earned in social work from Loyola University in Chicago. Mrs. Johnson was working as a social worker when she quit her job to support her husband John’s vision of starting a magazine that focused on Black life. When he was having trouble trying to find a name for a new magazine in 1945, he asked her for guidance since she had a degree in art. She chose Ebony because it means “fine black African wood.” The magazine would go on to define generations. To those on the outside looking in, Mrs. Johnson appeared to be living in the shadow of her late husband John H. Johnson, founder of the Johnson Publishing Company, publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines. Those who really knew Eunice Walker Johnson understood that she was the wind beneath his wings. She stood by her husband in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, in good times and in bad until his death in 2005.

Mrs. Johnson dined with kings and queens, presidents and musical royalty, yet she remained down to earth. To hear her speak revealed a story. When she opened her mouth, her heavy, southern drawl would make people look twice. “She was a shy woman. She wasn’t somebody you could approach and talk to right away,” said Audrey Smaltz, the Ebony Fashion Fair commentator from 1970 to 1977. “She was an astute fashion person who had more than just fashion in her background. She was an interior designer. She was a lover of art. She had the greatest art collection you could imagine. Because of Eunice Johnson, I met Pablo Picasso and Giorgio de Curico. She introduced me to luxury, art and culture way beyond what I went to school for. I graduated with an art degree. She took me to a Ph.D.” Always impeccably dressed and wearing designer fashions herself, everything came back to fashion and education.

What started out as a charity benefit in 1958, turned into the birth of the Ebony Fashion Fair. As the show got underway, the models ran into problems with make-up, unable to find shades to match their skin. The solution? Fashion Fair Cosmetics. At the inception of the Ebony Fashion Fair, Mrs. Johnson would travel to Europe with her husband to buy clothes. They would “beg, persuade, and threaten to get the right to buy clothes,” Mr. Johnson once said. The resistance came, he recalled, because certain designers thought that White women wouldn’t value their designs if they were worn by Black women.

A few of the leading designers finally agreed to sell fashions to the Johnsons for the show. Among the first Blacks to buy from French haute couture fashion houses, they started out spending half a million dollars annually. “She was eventually known in fashion circles as the largest buyer of European haute couture,” said Owen. “As time progressed she would spend a million dollars each year on 200 complete ensembles featured in the hour and a half presentation.”

Mrs. Johnson bought creations from designers that others were afraid to take a chance on because they were unknown and just starting out. Valentino, Roberto Cavalli, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent were among the names.

“They were young and in their 20s, just starting out,” said Owen. “They were looking for people to buy their high-end couture. That started her personal relationship with them because she was there before they made a name for themselves.”

Often criticized for not having more Black fashion designers, the Ebony Fashion Fair did showcase throughout the years the creations of Stephen Burrows, Patrick Kelly, Willi Smith and B. Michael. In later years it featured L’Amour, Quinton de Alexander, Kevan Hall, Fusha, Anthony Hankins, and even the Steve Harvey Collection.

Hands on until the end when her eyesight began to fail her, Mrs. Johnson made certain to see a complete run-through of each fashion show with the models before it hit the road. One year when she wasn’t excited about the show’s new direction using rap music, she made the models scrap everything and start all over. Committed to community service, Mrs. Johnson received many honors from the United Negro College Fund, The Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, Alabama A & M, Loyola University and many others. In 1988, Mrs. Johnson returned to her alma mater, Talladega, to receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. She also had an honorary degree from Shaw University.

Fiercely independent, Mrs. Johnson could be seen driving around Chicago in her two-tone Rolls Royce. She let nothing stop her. Like Frank Sinatra, she did things her way. And she did it with style. To date, more than 4,000 shows have been performed in the United States, the Caribbean, London, England, and Kingston, Jamaica. Ebony Fashion Fair has raised more than $55 million for various scholarship groups.

The Evolution of Usher

Usher knows his stuff when it comes to fashion.

The R&B singer describes his style as “flashy classy” and he is known for seamlessly moving between three-piece banker suits and leather jackets. He admires edgier designers such as Rick Owens, Marc Jacobs and Kris Van Assche.

Usher has enough business savvy to say it’s not the right time for him to launch his own label, but he is in New York to promote his new fragrance, Usher VIP, a follow-up to Usher He, which ranked in the top 40 of men’s prestige fragrance sales this year, according to market data researcher NPD.

This is all moonlighting for him, though. Musically, Usher had the No. 3 hip-hop song according to Nielsen/BDS with “Papers.”

On this day Usher is in a luxurious hotel suite wearing a long blue cardigan sweater, dark jeans and black leather boots to answer fashion questions from The Associated Press:

AP: What’s the most important element of your look?

Usher: It’s about how you feel, not about `fashion.’ It’s about healthy living, the combination of foods you eat. … Those ancillaries are what lead you to `fashion.’ Fashion can be a beautiful scarf, soft cashmere sweater or cool boots.

AP: Where do you find inspiration for your style?

Usher: My taste develops the more I’m introduced to things, the more I travel and experience different lifestyles. I always go out and embrace where I am — I don’t stay locked up in a hotel room. I am an eclectic spectator.

AP: Why isn’t there an Usher fashion label yet?

Usher: I’m building a lifestyle brand and I’m not rushing to do clothes. I feel like I’m speaking to my customer now with the fragrances, and, in this economy and with my style and attention to detail, my clothes won’t come cheap. It’s not the right time.

AP: What did you wear when you sang at President Obama’s holiday concert earlier this month?

Usher: I worked with the president’s tailor. I wanted an edge but be appropriate and I wanted to be warm. The scarf I wore was attached to the jacket, which was cashmere and had waxed silver thread. I wore a slim pant that was dressy and well tailored — and I’m in good shape now so I didn’t mind showing off a little. I wore black boots that were like spats with French buttons by Dsquared2. … It was all new for the president. (Source)

Naomi Sims: Cover Girl 1948-2009

On the same day she graduated from Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh, Naomi Sims set out for Manhattan, leaving behind a city where she never felt as if she belonged. She was like many New York aspirants — creative, ambitious, an escapee from somewhere too small and stifling. Except that her sense of isolation, in the place she left, was extreme. What Naomi Sims would soon experience was a newly arrived New Yorker’s fairy tale: extraordinary and nearly instant success.

Living with an older sister in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and attending the Fashion Institute of Technology, she found herself short on money and decided to try modeling. Without an agency to represent her, she cannily cultivated relationships with photographers and other figures in the fashion industry and, at 19, graced the cover of the August 1967 issue of Fashions of the Times, a supplement to The New York Times Magazine. The next year, she appeared on the cover of Ladies Home Journal — the first black model to be featured on the front of a mainstream women’s magazine.

Nearly six feet tall, with ebony skin and African features, Sims was regal in carriage and intuitive in her sense of style. She projected the rare and alluring combination of sultriness and rectitude. She walked everywhere in Manhattan, and her leggy strides once were described as “enough to sizzle the sidewalks on a cold day.” In 1973, she married the art dealer Michael Findlay and lived in an apartment filled with classical music and fresh flowers. Findlay told me about first meeting her at a party where Timothy Leary was wooing her. “She dissuaded him in a charming but definitive way,” he said. “With such aplomb.”

Such outward self-assurance gave no hint of Sims’s painful upbringing. Her mother, separated from Naomi’s father shortly after her birth, gave her up when she was about 10. Naomi spent time in a group home and then was raised as a foster child by a working-class black couple in Pittsburgh’s Homewood section. She would later recall that a younger foster daughter in the house, lighter in skin tone, was treated “like a daughter” while she felt more like a helper. Naomi’s mother lived about a mile away, where she raised Naomi’s two older sisters. (Why her mother gave her up remains unclear.)

Sims landed in New York at a cultural moment when the city’s aesthetic arbiters were ready to embrace her alongside the doe-eyed frailness of blondes like Twiggy, who came to New York at about the same time. Andy Warhol befriended her, and she was among the crowd at the Factory and Studio 54, but not every night. Sims was known within her industry as someone who showed up on time and prepared, usually having already done her own hair and makeup because few stylists knew how to work with a black woman. CONTINUE READING...

Night Creams In Sync With the Body’s Clock?

THESE days, even resting hours are meant to be productive. Build more muscle then burn extra calories while you sleep. Invest wisely, and get rich as you snooze. And if beauty marketers are to be believed, no woman should let a night pass without slathering on a face cream dedicated to repairing her skin from dusk till dawn.

By day, our besieged skin contends with what the cosmetics industry calls environmental stressors like ultraviolet rays, pollution and cigarette smoke. Those stressors contribute to the appearance of aging. So the evening, the makers of overnight skin potions suggest, is the ideal time to repair the damage done. Sleep, my pretty, and wake prettier is the thinking.

“At nighttime, skin does its repair,” said Kristine Cryer, the vice president for product development at StriVectin, which added an overnight serum to its roster this month. “It’s not working hard like it’s working during the day.”

In particular, women worried about losing the battle against time won’t go to bed without a rejuvenating lotion. In the first half of 2009, sales of nighttime facial moisturizers were an estimated $43 million, and sales of specialized nighttime treatments — mostly concentrated serums — totaled roughly $17 million, according to Karen Grant, the vice president for beauty at the NPD Group.

And the number of such treatments is on the rise. So far this year, 55 nighttime skin care products have made their debut in North America, compared with 40 in 2007, according to the Mintel International Group, a market research firm.

When it comes to selling these potions, “re-” is the prefix of the moment, said Taya Tomasello, a senior beauty analyst at Mintel. If a company wants to connote nighttime renewal, it’s as easy as using this formula, Ms. Tomasello said, “RE-insert-verb-here-ING.” Regenerating. Restoring. Resurfacing. The idea is each morning your skin is “a new blank canvas,” she said.

StriVectin’s new $59 Overnight Facial Resurfacing Serum promises to dissolve gently “surface imperfections, minimizing the appearance of large pores, evening skin tone and improving the overall health of skin for a smoother, younger-looking, more vibrant complexion.”

In the last few months, Estée Lauder has made much ado about so-called “clock genes” in our skin that can distinguish night from day. After repeated exposure to environmental stressors, these genes become “de-synchronized,” slowing the skin’s ability to repair itself, according to the company. Enter its $47.50 Synchronized Recovery Complex, the company’s newest Advanced Night Repair serum, which “makes sure cells work together for optimal repair of all the damage that occurred during the day,” said Dr. Nadine Pernodet, executive director of research and development for Estée Lauder.

There are practical reasons to use certain facial treatments before bed. A serum need not be layered under makeup or sunscreen. Certain ingredients that degrade in light or make skin likely to burn are best used when the sun doesn’t shine. Lightening creams to even out skin tone and some retinoids fit that description.

But there is no scientific proof that skin repair actually ramps up at night, dermatologists say. And skin is capable of juggling multiple assaults by day. “We are constantly repairing our skin and responding to stressors,” said Dr. Jenny Kim, an associate professor of dermatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A. “Our skin doesn’t wait for nighttime repair.”

But research has shown that certain physiological changes that happen at night may enhance the effectiveness of some creams, Dr. Kim suggested. Skin temperature rises, as does water loss leading to slightly drier skin. “If your water loss is higher, theoretically due to less of a skin barrier,” she said, a moisturizer “can improve the skin barrier.”SOURCE:NYTIMES.COM

Naomi Sims, 61, Pioneering Cover Girl, Is Dead

Naomi Sims, whose appearance as the first black model on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal in November 1968 was a consummate moment of the Black is Beautiful movement, and who went on to design successful collections of wigs and cosmetics for black women under her name, died Saturday in Newark. She was 61 and lived in Newark.

She died of cancer, said her son, Bob Findlay. Ms. Sims is sometimes referred to as the first black supermodel. “Naomi was the first,” the designer Halston told The New York Times in 1974. “She was the great ambassador for all black people. She broke down all the social barriers.”

Ms. Sims often said childhood insecurities and a painful upbringing — living in foster homes, towering over her classmates and living in a largely poor white neighborhood in Pittsburgh — had inspired her to strive to become “somebody really important” at a time when cultural perceptions of black Americans were being challenged by the civil rights movement and a renewed stress on racial pride.

When Ms. Sims arrived in New York on a scholarship to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1966, there was very little interest in fashion for black models and only a handful who had been successful, like Dorothea Towles Church, who starred in the couture shows in 1950s Paris, and Donyale Luna, who was named Vogue’s model of the year in 1966.

In need of money, Ms. Sims, with her heart-shaped face and long limbs, was encouraged by classmates and counselors to give it a try. But every agency she approached turned her down, some telling her that her skin was too dark.

Undeterred, Ms. Sims decided to approach photographers herself. Gosta Peterson, a photographer for The Times, agreed to photograph her for the cover of its August 1967 fashion supplement, then called Fashions of The Times.

The Faces of the Future - S E A N J O H N

Sean John is looking for some new leading men to be featured in its new upcoming FALL/WINTER Ad Campaign. All participants must be at least 18 years of age or older.
All submissions must be submitted by May 1st.
To enter click the link shown below:

http://www.seanjohn.com/contest/

‘Top Model’ Casting Goes Smoothly, but Isn’t Free of Tears

Hundreds of young women subjected themselves to certain heartbreak early Saturday in Midtown Manhattan, rising before dawn to line up, primp and be scrutinized and summarily rejected by the judges for “America’s Next Top Model,” the reality show.At least this time there was no near riot. This weekend’s casting in New York was a do-over after things went terribly wrong four weeks ago, when a car overheated and began smoking in front of hundreds of aspiring models. They had been waiting along a jammed sidewalk outside the Park Central Hotel and were frightened en masse after seeing the smoke and fearing an explosion was next. Barricades were toppled, people were knocked over, arrests were made and the casting was called off.Saturday’s casting, at the Pennsylvania Hotel on Seventh Avenue, saw no such drama — the police arranged barricades along West 33rd Street to contain the line in a snakelike fashion. Yet the orderliness of the proceedings did little to lessen the sting of defeat.“We were a little shellshocked, a little hurt,” said Jenny Whoa, who lined up at 6:15 a.m. and was rejected by a judge almost as soon as she was herded into the judging room with dozens of other women (Tyra Banks, the show’s host, head judge and executive producer, was not in attendance). Ms. Whoa lives in Brooklyn and is diminutive by modeling industry standards, but tried out because the height limit for the show’s next installation is 5-foot-7. At 27, though, Ms. Whoa is at the upper age limit for contestants (the minimum age is 18). “It was,” she said, “my first and last chance, all in one swoop.”The doors opened at 6 a.m. Women of all shapes and sizes arrived from the five boroughs and beyond: supermarket cashiers, store clerks, Federal Express employees, students, dropouts, all eager, even desperate, to be plucked from their regular lives and transformed into fodder for the reality television mill.The height limit was ignored by a handful of statuesque women, including Mecca Aaron, who lives in Downtown Brooklyn and is 6-foot-3. “I’m hoping to be the exception,” said Ms. Aaron, 25, who said it was her fourth time trying out. Shakiesha Watson, who is 18 and five feet tall, took a train from Trenton before dawn and had not bothered going to sleep Friday night. Alana Smith, 19, arrived in the city at dawn after taking an overnight bus from Toronto with her boyfriend. They had arrived in Toronto on a cheap flight from California: Ms. Smith, who is 5-foot-5, had always wanted to model, but had missed the show’s auditions out West. CONTINUE READING...

Tyson is Making a Supermodel

EXCERPT FROM:BET.COM ~ Written by Clay Cane -- Check out more of Tyson Beckford on "Make Me a Supermodel," which airs every Wednesday on the Bravo Network.  Click here for details.  Tyson Beckford is the only Black male model and one of few male models in general to become a household name.  Beckford gained international fame as a Ralph Lauren model in the mid-90s, named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by "People" magazine in 1995 and has walked catwalks with his urban-meets-high-fashion-style from Milan to New York City.

Now, Tyson is on his second season as host of “Make Me a Supermodel,” which airs every Wednesday at 10PM on Bravo.  In this interview, the well-preserved 38 year-old talks fashion, Diddy and those pesky gay rumors. 

When you were promoting “Make Me a Supermodel” last year you said you didn't have as much creative control as you would've liked.  How is it different this time around with the second season?   Second season I got a chance to really talk with the kids.  I'm a mentor, not a judge anymore.  Being a mentor you get to talk with them more and you don't have to keep a certain distance.  As a judge, you weren't allowed to really get too close to them.  I was also able to talk to the producers and tell them how fashion really is and how we can make it better. 

There is an idea that modeling reality show competitions don't reflect the fashion world.  In what ways does your show reflect what is really going on in fashion?
For one, we are the only show that has a designer on it by the name of Catherine Malandrino.  You don't even have to say any more after that one! 

Do you ever feel bad about critiquing somebody and seeing them heartbroken or crying?
Anything or everything you see on television is nothing compared to what the real world is like.  So, we're actually preparing you for what is really going to happen when you get out there.  They're not going to be as nice as we are.  I’ve had my book thrown back at me.  The world of fashion is not easy just like the world of life is not easy. There are wars going on in the world and there are people starving.  That's the reality of it. It's not an easy business.  People sometimes think it's an easy business, but it's really not. As we say in the hood, "Don't get it twisted!" CONTINUE READING..

21-Year-Old Virgin