St. Pete’s own Minnie Styles Killen modeled for Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta and Diane Von Furstenberg in her heyday before creating the Miss Black St. Petersburg Beauty Pageant almost 50 years ago.
BY J.A. JONES | Staff Writer
ST PETERSBURG – In honor of Women’s History Month, The Weekly Challenger is proud to celebrate Minnie Styles Killen, a St. Pete legend who not only traveled as a celebrated model and was sought after by the likes of Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta and Diane Von Furstenberg, but who ran the beloved Miss Black St. Petersburg Beauty Pageant from 1976 to 1991.
Killen explained how her modeling career began in the late 1960s after she’d left St. Petersburg for a time and lived in Pennsylvania. While in the “City of Brotherly Love,” she took the civil service exam to find a decent-paying job. One night out at the bowling alley, she met a young model who would change her life.
The young lady saw Killen’s beauty and knew she was the one — telling her she was perfect for what she had in mind. When asked about her profession, “I said I was a model. But I can’t do that now. I got to find a job!”
The young lady told her she’d teach her some techniques and the technical terms for the different modeling poses and turns, and Killen agreed. The model arranged for her to participate in fashion shows at a nearby garment house, where models walked around in the different designs for department store fashion buyers.
“So that was my first paying modeling job when I left Florida,” Killen exclaimed.
After doing more fashion shows in Philly, she decided to go to New York. Killen started going to different modeling agencies, and one told her they were looking for Black models for Clinique’s makeup line.
“Me with my country self; I washed my face, put on a little Pond’s cold cream and a little lipstick, with no powder, no makeup, no eyeshadow, and went there thinking they wanted to see skin!” She arrived to find a room full of “beautiful women with long false lashes and faces full of makeup. And I said to myself, ‘Girl, you should have put on some makeup.'”
When the Clinique representative came out, “It was a long line of us; she just went down the line and looked at everybody. And then she walked back up the line, stopped at me, and then she said, ‘Thank you all for coming, but everybody can leave — except for you.’”
After the other models left, Killen confided in the representative that she thought she didn’t have a chance. The woman told her that she had the best chance because she didn’t come down all made up. Killen’s skin was fresh and healthy, not like the other models. The natural look was exactly what the company was looking for.
Killen got the job traveling around selling the Clinique line in different department stores. After visiting a location in the Bronx, she was soon offered a job, becoming an assistant buyer in the cosmetic department.
“It was more money than I was making, so I took the job.”
Killen returned to St. Petersburg after she became pregnant around the time of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. After giving birth to her son Jonathan, modeling called once more. She was sent a round-trip ticket and put up in a hotel in Chicago. She was recruited to audition for the Ebony Fashion Fair show.
During the go-see (modeling audition), Killen, who was 5’7 and a half, “fooled” Eunice W. Johnson — founder of Ebony Fashion Fair and co-founder of Johnson Publishing Company that published “Ebony” and “Jet” magazines — into believing she was 5’8 by standing on her tippy toes when measured at the crown of her head. She was hired and, for a brief time, was an Ebony Fashion Fair goddess. She remained an associate of Mrs. Johnson when she left.
Killen said the only job she turned down was one where she was asked to model nude for a “girlie” fashion magazine. When the photographer asked her to take her bra off, she said, “I can’t do this job. I got a son at home, and I don’t want no school children to bring him a magazine with his mama all laid out. I wasn’t going to do nudity — nothing involving sex because I wanted that clean image. I didn’t smoke and I didn’t drink during that phase of my life.”
Through a local modeling agency, Killen also booked several television commercials and print work with Eastern Airlines and Maas Brothers Department Store. Designer fashion shows with Maas Brothers led to work with fashion icons Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta and Diane Von Furstenberg.
“Bill Blass loved to feature me in whites, cremes, beiges, and reds. Oscar de la Renta requested my service because of my long arms; he liked that long arm feeling for his gowns when you turned your arms and swayed. Diane Von Furstenberg couldn’t understand why I was still in St. Petersburg. I told her I had done the New York thing. She said, if you ever come back to New York, make sure you look me up.”
In part two of “Minnie Styles Killen and the Miss Black St. Petersburg Beauty Pageant,” we’ll learn about her modeling school and the birth of the Miss Black St. Petersburg Beauty Pageant.
If you missed Killen speaking about her extraordinary life on Wednesday at Tombolo Books with Gwendolyn Reese, the president of the African American Heritage Association, you can watch the interview on Facebook.
