Barbara Cheeseborough


Barbara Cheeseborough was an American fashion model of the 1960s and 1970s, known for promoting an "Afrocentric" style.

Biography

Cheeseborough was born March 14, 1946 in Philadelphia, and after her marriage to William Edward Cheeseborough, a fashion photographer, she moved to New York City to begin a career in fashion modelling. Her career spanned 20+ years and she appeared in Essence, Bazaar, Redbook, Vogue and Cosmopolitan magazines.
She famously appeared on the cover of the first issue of Essence Magazine in 1970. Her appearance on the cover of Essence was described by NPR of as "the first to show an Afrocentric beauty standard when millions of young women were casting about for a kind of beauty they could identify with and replicate." Cheeseborough also appeared on the iconic cover of Funkadelic's 1971 release Maggot Brain.
Cheeseborough died on October 24, 2013 of colon cancer at the age of 67.