Pat Cleveland: A Model's Gifts
Walter Rhett
August 06, 2009
Perlo's sense of history and culture is rooted in the prism of the 20th century. The success of men and women from the small villages of the world, youngsters who climbed off dirt roads and sidewalks into celebrated roles in the power corridors of the world is the main theme for this arc of time. The 20th century's renaissance is found in the bright flowering of its people, names tied to spectacular achievements. Their high arc had wide and deep roots. We feel the direct and indirect effects of this influence in the new millennium.
In this back and forth across time, in two different directions across the oceans, the amazing voyages of Mahatma Gandhi in India and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana changed how our customer service questions are answered and help make "Funga," an African welcome dance, the standard taught in community centers to thousands of young girls.
Golda Meir (Meyerson), the daughter of a Jewish carpenter and Milwaukee grocer once raised $50 million, the money that made the state of Israel a reality. Later, she was Israel's ambassador to the Soviet Union, and won election as Israel's 4thPrime Minister. Chou En Lai (now spelled Zhou En-lai) survived the Long March, a 8,000 mile march in winter crossing the world's roughest mountainous terrain, served as China's first Premier under China's revered Mao Se Tung (Mao Zedong) and paved the way for China's explosive, unprecedented emergence from a feudal, pleasant society to the world's most advanced economy, making trade goods from computer chips to infant seats for the American market—but its fastest growing US imports are zinc, nickel, and lumber!
The 20th century was a time of names, even before cable and the internet. One of these names died recently, Naomi Sims, one of the earliest and most auspicious African-American 20th century models (women of African descent have modeled for eons; they appeared on coins in the ancient world and on paper money in every Confederate state). She appeared on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Time.
Sims was born in Oxford, MS, grew up in Pittsburgh, raised by a white foster family, and went to New York after she graduated from Westinghouse High. Creative, beautiful, and persistent, she self-marketed her skills directly to photographers and advertisers who clamored for the fresh, astounding face that agencies rejected with thin excuses. Naomi Sims jumped the color bar and found astounding success as a model and later, as a business woman. In its 1st year, her wig business grossed $5 million.
Naomi Sims death, at 61, brings another name to mind from the fashion world, a woman, gratefully still with us, a name from my college years, Pat Cleveland. Although in the same industry, Pat Cleveland had different gifts than Naomi Sims. She was and still is an insider, and among those who follow fashion she causes a stir.
What Michelangelo could do with a brushstroke, Pat could do with her toe. When her foot hit the carpet, something electric happened. Fashionai would surge forward, bounding out of their seats to see what dress or jacket, sports outfit or formal wear Pat strutted. What Michelangelo put on canvas, Pat brought to life.
Innocent with an edge, Pat was street-side and beautifully normal. Pat was the original quiet storm. Scientists call it kinetic, the ability she possessed to allow her whole body to give an unspoken definition to a feeling, mood, or attitude. Her runway walk offered combinations of sass and charm without allure. She could project sheer joy, a bounding happiness that caused watchers to gasp and smile. She was glorious without excess. Pat didn't just show clothes. She touched hearts.
Believe it, that Pat Cleveland has special gifts. But her gifts of body and soul didn't make headlines; rather than celebrity and fame, Pat build a career on connections: connections to clothes, to people in the industry, to people who support and follow it. Outlandish, sophisticated, cloistered, Pat changed the air in the room and made the colors more vivid. For an Italian designer she once emerged in complete darkness, trailing a 72 wedding veil light by hundreds of twinkling Christmas lights.
Having reached her fifties, Pat is still the guiding light of the runway. Many feel she is the best runway muse of all time. Halston called her his muse, and so did Yves St. Laurent.
Her mother came to new Jersey from rural Georgia, won an art scholarship to Pratt Institute and a youthful Pat was the youngest model to work in Ebony's Magazine's national touring show, Ebony's Fashion Fair. Her friendships and loyalties are deep, unusual in an industry that is catcalled as superficial, diva-driven, laced with angst, with even the hottest season's models soon disposable. Yes, she danced at Studio 54, and partied in Paris, New York, London, Milan. Yet, after 4 decades, Pat remains. Intact. Still revered.
Pat Cleveland's virtues are singular and unparalleled. She walked into fashion without ego or aspiration or ambition, and found in the trail of simple steps along a fashion show runaway a chance to throw off all the strings and demands of an industry built on whimsy. What she offered instead, was a joy as fierce as the sun, signaled by an extended finger, a turnof the shoulders, the whirling cross of a leg in motion, with the spare economy of a shout in a joyful blues. As she paced, she showed us unknown places and ways to feel, places we immediately recognized. Pat Cleveland guided us into a new body language, an exciting freedom, both intimate and vulnerable. More than race, she broke down human barriers. For all that she changed within the industry, Pat Cleveland's biggest advances came by showing us how to negotiate the terrifying obstacles we stumble over, in our own fashion, within.
In this back and forth across time, in two different directions across the oceans, the amazing voyages of Mahatma Gandhi in India and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana changed how our customer service questions are answered and help make "Funga," an African welcome dance, the standard taught in community centers to thousands of young girls.
Golda Meir (Meyerson), the daughter of a Jewish carpenter and Milwaukee grocer once raised $50 million, the money that made the state of Israel a reality. Later, she was Israel's ambassador to the Soviet Union, and won election as Israel's 4thPrime Minister. Chou En Lai (now spelled Zhou En-lai) survived the Long March, a 8,000 mile march in winter crossing the world's roughest mountainous terrain, served as China's first Premier under China's revered Mao Se Tung (Mao Zedong) and paved the way for China's explosive, unprecedented emergence from a feudal, pleasant society to the world's most advanced economy, making trade goods from computer chips to infant seats for the American market—but its fastest growing US imports are zinc, nickel, and lumber!
The 20th century was a time of names, even before cable and the internet. One of these names died recently, Naomi Sims, one of the earliest and most auspicious African-American 20th century models (women of African descent have modeled for eons; they appeared on coins in the ancient world and on paper money in every Confederate state). She appeared on the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Time.
Sims was born in Oxford, MS, grew up in Pittsburgh, raised by a white foster family, and went to New York after she graduated from Westinghouse High. Creative, beautiful, and persistent, she self-marketed her skills directly to photographers and advertisers who clamored for the fresh, astounding face that agencies rejected with thin excuses. Naomi Sims jumped the color bar and found astounding success as a model and later, as a business woman. In its 1st year, her wig business grossed $5 million.
Naomi Sims death, at 61, brings another name to mind from the fashion world, a woman, gratefully still with us, a name from my college years, Pat Cleveland. Although in the same industry, Pat Cleveland had different gifts than Naomi Sims. She was and still is an insider, and among those who follow fashion she causes a stir.
What Michelangelo could do with a brushstroke, Pat could do with her toe. When her foot hit the carpet, something electric happened. Fashionai would surge forward, bounding out of their seats to see what dress or jacket, sports outfit or formal wear Pat strutted. What Michelangelo put on canvas, Pat brought to life.
Innocent with an edge, Pat was street-side and beautifully normal. Pat was the original quiet storm. Scientists call it kinetic, the ability she possessed to allow her whole body to give an unspoken definition to a feeling, mood, or attitude. Her runway walk offered combinations of sass and charm without allure. She could project sheer joy, a bounding happiness that caused watchers to gasp and smile. She was glorious without excess. Pat didn't just show clothes. She touched hearts.
Believe it, that Pat Cleveland has special gifts. But her gifts of body and soul didn't make headlines; rather than celebrity and fame, Pat build a career on connections: connections to clothes, to people in the industry, to people who support and follow it. Outlandish, sophisticated, cloistered, Pat changed the air in the room and made the colors more vivid. For an Italian designer she once emerged in complete darkness, trailing a 72 wedding veil light by hundreds of twinkling Christmas lights.
Having reached her fifties, Pat is still the guiding light of the runway. Many feel she is the best runway muse of all time. Halston called her his muse, and so did Yves St. Laurent.
Her mother came to new Jersey from rural Georgia, won an art scholarship to Pratt Institute and a youthful Pat was the youngest model to work in Ebony's Magazine's national touring show, Ebony's Fashion Fair. Her friendships and loyalties are deep, unusual in an industry that is catcalled as superficial, diva-driven, laced with angst, with even the hottest season's models soon disposable. Yes, she danced at Studio 54, and partied in Paris, New York, London, Milan. Yet, after 4 decades, Pat remains. Intact. Still revered.
Pat Cleveland's virtues are singular and unparalleled. She walked into fashion without ego or aspiration or ambition, and found in the trail of simple steps along a fashion show runaway a chance to throw off all the strings and demands of an industry built on whimsy. What she offered instead, was a joy as fierce as the sun, signaled by an extended finger, a turnof the shoulders, the whirling cross of a leg in motion, with the spare economy of a shout in a joyful blues. As she paced, she showed us unknown places and ways to feel, places we immediately recognized. Pat Cleveland guided us into a new body language, an exciting freedom, both intimate and vulnerable. More than race, she broke down human barriers. For all that she changed within the industry, Pat Cleveland's biggest advances came by showing us how to negotiate the terrifying obstacles we stumble over, in our own fashion, within.
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