‘Supreme Models’ Director Marcellas Reynolds On Iman, Zendaya And Fashion History

If 2022 was the year of once again recognizing the contributions of black models in the global fashion industry, then 2023 is the year where “the time is come.” That’s a quote directly from supermodel Iman in the epic, six-part documentary series “Supreme Models,” currently streaming on YouTube.

The docu series, helmed by model, stylist and author Marcellas Reynolds and supermodel Iman, tells the entire story and history of black fashion models from the original superstars of the 1970s to the modern mavens of 2022 who are pushing the industry to be more open and honest than ever. It features everyone from Zendaya and Veronica Webb to Joan Smalls, Precious Lee, Law Roach and Anna Wintour. It’s the first documentary to explicitly do so.

And Reynolds deliberately chose to place it where folks can access it for free.

“Here’s why I think it’s important that this documentary is on YouTube,” explains Reynolds, whose first book Supreme Models: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Fashion, was the catalyst behind the documentary series. “YouTube is global. It’s not sitting behind the paywall. And anyone who is interested in fashion of any age, any race, any creed, can watch the Supreme Models documentary for free. They don’t have to pay $10.95 or however much Netflix or Hulu or HBO Max decides to make their monthly fee.”

This relative freedom of access mimics the desire for true fashion freedom discussed in the doc series, which has been viewed over 8.1 million times since its October 2022 release. (Each episode has more than one million views individually.) In it, Reynolds and Iman gathered dozens of industry insiders – from magazine editors to stylists to photographers and directors to the models themselves – to discuss the ups and downs of the recurring, near white-out conditions of fashion’s runways. The short history is this: Pre-90s were a polka dotted, not-very-diverse landscape. The 90s were a diversity heyday. After that? Mainstream fashion week once again became nearly white.

This trend – suddenly up and to the right before trending down again – is something that needs to change for the better and then stabilize. Reynolds posits that diversifying all aspects of the fashion industry is good business and also leads to more creativity and inclusivity. The documentary offers proof from insiders of the truth of these statements. But business aside, the path of these uber popular black models offers a classic underdog-to-success story that most viewers can either imagine or empathize with.

“The things that the Black model goes through are the exact same thing that the Black woman goes through in her everyday life. Right?” explains Reynolds. “[Skin] color racism, the natural hair debate, sizeism, ageism…”

To that point, Vogue cover star Precious Lee takes centerstage in episode 6, where she even sheds a tear while explaining what it means for a curvy black woman to achieve cover model status. And this only after women like Iman and Naomi Campbell trailblazed and fought for inclusion for all models – not just for the “token black girl.”

“I love the moment we’re creating,” explains Lee in the documentary. (She recently was featured in Vogue.) “I love doing things that we haven’t seen. At the end of the day it can just be a photoshoot or it can be at timeless picture that’s gonna live forever.”

Explains Iman in episode one: “There is nothing like a Black woman on the runway. There truly is nothing like it.”

And she would know.

Those runway moments or those timeless pictures that live forever are the ones that history remembers, and they are also the ones that impact pop culture. Of course, it also matters who takes the photos and who selects the models, just as it matters who becomes editor of the fashion magazines.

“Me and Law [Roach] talk all the time. It’s not a lack of talent, it’s a lack of opportunity,” says Zendaya, who discussed Beyonce’s 2018 Vogue cover, which was photographed by Tyler Mitchell, who at the time was celebrated for being the first black photographer to make a Vogue cover in the magazine’s 100+ year history.

In the documentary, Zendaya is still aghast that “this was just” a few years ago and we are still saying the “first black” person achieved something for the first time.

Adds Joan Smalls, also in the documentary: “It’s hard to have a voice in an industry where they tell you shut up and look pretty.”

The models in the documentary all had a lot to say to push back on that sentiment. And, without this pushback, the industry would have remained far less diverse than its current status. They can’t sit back and just “be pretty” when there is so much more work to be done, especially in light of 2020’s racial reckoning.

The doc is remarkable in that it’s a bit of an eye opener – even for seasoned pros. But they have to speak up – just like Reynolds decided to do when creating the book Supreme Models in the first place. It was a true labor of love for the native Chicago model, media personality and stylist. He worked in the industry and knew these women and knew their stories. He wanted to create a book that accurately pulled together all the history that was not yet written down so it night be neatly collected in one place. For posterity.

The Back Story

Reynolds knows the history of Black modeling like the back of his hand.

He spouts off details and remembers covers and full color spreads that were the first or the best or the most shocking or the most beautiful. These are moments that can only be remembered by folks who were there, or those who sat at the table or were in the room when it happened.

“I mean, I always think back to Naomi Sims being on the cover of Ladies Home Journal and the fact that at that time, Ladies Home Journal had 14 million subscribers,” Reynolds explains. “Fourteen million people [representing] every race got a magazine with a Black woman with natural hair on the cover and dark skin. That changed everything. It actually opened the door to this idea that a Black woman could be celebrated for her beauty, for her natural hair and her dark skin and the size of her lips. And I think that lineage continues, right?”

He goes on.

“When you see somebody like Peggy Dillard, who was the second Black woman on the cover of American Vogue on the cover of the magazine, wearing her hair natural in an Afro. Or you see Shari Belafonte who had multiple Vogue covers with her natural short cropped Afro. Diversity and inclusion are important because people need to see themselves represented beautifully to counteract when they are being told that they’re not beautiful. That’s why we need diversity and inclusion. We need positive images of people, of all colors to counteract what is always told to us that we’re not beautiful or special.”

And we also need to document it, lest people forget the history of what happened.

“We are in danger of people not knowing who Josephine Baker, Hattie McDaniel, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge are,” explains Reynolds. “And if they don’t know who actresses are, they probably don’t really know who Helen Williams, Donyale Luna, Naomi Sims are. And if you stretch that out —if you stretch that out a decade from now—these people may not know who Beverly Johnson is and who Iman is.”

He shivers in disgust at this improbable future.

“These books stand in the face of that.”

Behind the Scenes

Reynolds was able to persuade Iman to sign on to the project after alerting her that no one had done this type of all encompassing documentary before. Iman signing on was a game changer, as was Zendaya’s contribution. Webb, a good friend of Reynolds, helped as well. In fact, she wrote the foreward for his first book. The majority of the documentary legwork had already been started with the success of the first book.

“Iman tells this story [about] when they approached [her] and it was was like, ‘Well, why would I do this? What do you bring it to the table that’s different than, than anybody else that’s told this story?’” Reynolds says. “And they were like, ‘Iman, nobody has ever told this story. There has never been a documentary about black models before.’ And Iman was like, ‘you’re kidding? That was the thing that really sold Iman on it.”

When Reynolds moved into the world of styling, he even tried out for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy but didn’t get that role. He then poured his heart and soul into working on his passion project Supreme Models and using all his star power to call up friends and colleagues like Bethann Hardison to put together the sparkly, indepth, 240-page tome. He then went on, in 2021, to publish Supreme Actresses: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Hollywood, which features a plethora of the industry’s greatest thespians.

Well-meaning insiders expected Reynolds to create a fashion/style book, like many other insiders have done. But Reynolds didn’t want to add to that early 2000s trend, which saw a plethora of how-to-get-dressed style books enter the pantheon for the would-be, at-home fashionista. From 2011 or so, he knew he would write a comprehensive book about supermodels.

That said, Reynolds almost went broke putting together his first book, especially after having to secure rights for the images he used. But Abrams took up the project and his friend and supermodel Veronica Webb wrote the forward. The rest is history now that Iman signed on as an executive producer of the documentary, which took about a year to put together.

Reynolds also has plans for a third book, which is coming soon. Meanwhile he does have some learnings he is happy to share about creating a doc series from scratch and doing something unexpected – and succeeding wildly at it.

“We as Black people have to step into when we know what we’re talking about, when we’re authorities,” he explains. “We’re so used to being checked by somebody else who doesn’t know as much as we do, that we allow them to check us or allow them power that they don’t deserve to wield. I’m not doing that anymore in any area of my life. I’m not doing that with my books. I’m not doing that with my documentaries. I’m not doing that as a stylist. I’m not doing that as a person. I’m not doing that in my life.”

As 2023 opens up, Reynolds is ready to shine the light on the true style makers who are creating history with every film and every photo.

“I’m stepping fully into my power as a writer, a producer, a director, a historian, a humanitarian,” says Reynolds. “I’m owning it.”