Top: A 1960s promo shot of The Supremes, featuring Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, and Mary Wilson. Collectors Weekly: Can you tell me about your journey researching your aunts?Ībove: Nichelle Gainer’s great-aunt Mildred Taylor, neé Green, did local modeling in Newark, New Jersey, in the 1950s. We spoke with Gainer over the phone, and she explained to us the stories behind the photos she’s found, why glamour is important, and why Vintage Black Glamour will be more than just a collection of pretty pictures. Gainer’s first book, a nonfiction coffee-table tome about women celebrities, Vintage Black Glamour, which will come out this September, can be preordered now. While her novel went onto the back burner, her web sites drew the attention of a London publisher, Rocket 88. Gainer put her fiction work aside to focus on these real-life stories.Įventually, Gainer started a Tumblr and Facebook fan page, both called Vintage Black Glamour, full of gorgeous images that rarely make it into the public consciousness. Looking for newspaper articles on her aunt, she discovered a whole world of history that hardly ever bubbles to the surface: stunning, well-dressed African American stars celebrated in the black community, and sometimes even in the mainstream. But there’s so much more to these women.” “If people know about Josephine Baker, they think of her in the banana skirt. But her true passion is fiction, so she decided to write a novel about black beauty pageants in the 1950s, partially inspired by one of her two glamorous aunts, who was a model in the 1950s-the other was an opera singer who rubbed shoulders with the biggest celebrities of her day. Nichelle Gainer knows a thing or two about glamour: She spent most of her career working for magazines like “Woman’s Day,” “GQ,” “Us Weekly,” and “InStyle,” with a focus on celebrity, fashion, and grooming.
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