When I lived in Tampa, FL, some years ago, one of the premier events among African American women was the Ebony Fashion Fair. I’d hear friends and acquaintances talk excitedly about getting tickets to this fabulous dress-up affair.
Some of them wore outfits that rivaled the models on the runway, but maybe not as outlandish. I don’t recall ever attending a Fashion Fair for that reason. I always thought the clothes – just like most fashions on the runway – were too way-out-there, and were never actually made to be worn but to be shown.
But I always admired what Eunice W. Johnson, founder and producer of Fashion Fair, was trying to do and accomplished – showing the world and black women that we deserved to be as fashionably put-together as anyone else, that we also could walk in style.
After Johnson died last year at age 93, her trademark show was put on hiatus. The show’s no more, but those who for years plunked down the $30 or so (and got an Ebony subscription in the process) can relive those times by participating in an online auction of clothes from the Fashion Fair collection.
Until Oct. 14, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago will be conducting an online auction of 707 lots of dresses, scarves, shoes and coats by the world’s leading designers on liveauctioneers.com. On Oct. 22, an on-site sale will be held at the auction house, preceded by a preview from Oct. 15-21.
Johnson handpicked these outfits over the last 50 years, and they include such designers as Vivienne Westwood, Christian Dior, Fendi, Bob Mackie, Mary McFadden, Chanel, Bill Blass, Missoni, Halston, Carolina Herrera and Yves Saint Laurent. Many of the items are estimated at a reasonable $100 to $200. Among the highest are a Givenchy blue and green fox fur estimated at $2,000 to $4,000 and an Emanuel Ungaro brown and orange fox fur estimated at $1,500 to $2,500. All sales come with a 24 percent buyer’s premium.
According to the Hindman website, some items also will be sold from Johnson’s own closet. This will be the second such sale; Hindman auctioned 900 items from her private collection last year.
Johnson created the traveling fashion show back in 1958, and starting out wasn’t easy. Top European designers initially rebuffed her, worrying that their clothes would be considered of lesser value by their white fashionistas if black women wore them. A few finally came around. Johnson would hand-picked the 200 outfits each year for the shows.
She also paraded the clothes of black designers alongside the big names, and helped launch the careers of many black models and celebrities. And the show was a financial boost for local sororities, women’s groups and community organizations that relied on it to raise money for scholarships and other programs. Some of these groups had been sponsoring the fair since the beginning or soon after. Fashion Fair is said to have raised $55 million over its lifetime.
It’ been years since I’ve heard anyone speak of Fashion Fair the way I remember it during my years in Florida. The show lost some of its allure. So, I was not surprised to hear that it had basically disappeared.
Eunice Johnson left behind a mighty legacy. And you have a couple weeks to wrap yourself inside an embodiment of it through the fashions she chose for us.
