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"I knew I’d never have Grace Kelly’s little nose or Rita Hayworth s figure," writes Pat Cleveland in her memoir Walking with the Muses. "But I could have bright red lips, lots of hair, and a job with Halston."
Since being discovered on a subway platform by then Vogue fashion editor Carrie Donovan in 1966, the Harlem-born supermodel has spent her decades-long career breaking boundaries. Not just as a Black woman in a predominantly white industry, but as a beauty whose talent and charisma made her different. Her distinctive facial features—namely, her aquiline nose and sculptural bone structure—proved to be a makeup artist s dream. From learning the tricks of the trade at a young age from her aunt who was a dancer, to being on high-concept sets with the likes of Steven Meisel and Karl Lagerfeld in Paris, Cleveland always loved to stoke the imagination with vivid, cut-crease smoky eyes, glossy crimson lips, and streaks of blush that dramatically played off her pyramid-esque cheekbones. And while her brushed out spirals worn loose were always something to marvel at, when she slicked back her lengths into a taut low knot (a precursor to Sade s scraped-back rope braids), it further accentuated her above-neck theatrics, as well as her famously lithe silhouette.
In honor of Cleveland s 71st birthday, a look back at the striking beauty that cemented her status as one of the fashion world s most beloved renegades.
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