Naomi Sims on an August 1973 Cosmopolitan Magazine
Her family moved to Pittsburgh, where her mother became ill and Ms. Sims was placed in foster care. She remained close with her sisters, and followed the next oldest, Betty, to New York after graduating from Westinghouse High School. She is survived by her son, Bob, her sister, Betty Sims, and a granddaughter.
A graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Ms. Sims also took night courses in psychology at New York University but gave them up when her modeling career took off.
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.
Naomi Sims on a Life Magazine cover
In need of money, Ms. Sims, with her very beautiful features was encouraged by classmates and counselors at FIT in 1966 to give modeling a try. Initially, every agency she approached turned her down, some telling her that her skin was too dark.
With hard work, perseverance and determination, she kicked down doors. She modeled for top designers such as Halston, Teal Traina, Fernando Sánchez and Giorgio di Sant’Angelo.
Two images of Ms. Sims, one from the 1967 Times fashion magazine cover and the other from a 1969 issue of Life are in the current Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “The Model as Muse.”
In interviews, Ms. Sims often said she held the industry in low regard because of the way male executives treated her and, more generally, she said, “because people have the idea that models are stupid.”
In 1969, Ms. Sims told The Times, “There is nothing sadder than an old, broke model, and there are many models who have nothing at the end of their career.”
After five years of modeling, she gave it up and started a wig-making business with styles designed for black women. It eventually expanded into a multimillion-dollar beauty empire and at least five books on modeling and beauty. As a model, she often did her own hair and makeup, since many studio assistants were unfamiliar with working with darker skin. And she noticed that most commercially available wigs were designed for Caucasian hair, so she began experimenting with her own designs, baking synthetic hairs in her oven at home to create the right texture to look like straightened black hair. Within five years, her designs, produced by the Metropa Company, had annual sales of $5 million.
She also wrote books, including “All About Health and Beauty for the Black Woman,” “How to Be a Top Model” and “All About Success for the Black Woman,” as well as an advice column for teenage girls in Right On! Magazine. In the 1980s, she expanded the Naomi Sims Collection to include a prestige fragrance, beauty salons and cosmetics, but by the end of the decade she had become less involved with its daily operations. Many images of Ms. Sims from that period are still used to promote the products that bear her name.
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What a complex and fascinating woman. Style with substance; beauty with brains.
btw- Doris Sims was her other sister (now deceased), not her granddaughter. Her granddaughter’s name must be kept private, as she is a minor.
Thanks helenwheels74, we made the correction.