Racial Barriers
Church was revered in France during the five years she modeled in Paris. Church recalled her experience in Paris of the early 1950s in a 2004 interview for Women's Wear Daily: "For once I was not considered black, African American or Negro. I was just an American." The French fashion establishment "treated you like a queen," she said.
In her 1998 book Black and Beautiful, author Barbara Summers quotes Church about her celebrity status in Paris at the beginning of the 1950s: "I got invited out all the time. I was the only black model in Europe and I just thought I was an international person."
Church was not totally immune to prejudice in Paris, however. Pierre Balmain would not allow her to borrow his designs for an Ebony Magazine shoot out of concern Balmain's white clientele would be offended.
Read more about this topic: Dorothea Church
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