Donyale Luna Changed The Face Of Fashion In The ’60s. Now, The Revolutionary Black Model Is Finally Getting Her Due A few years ago, my father found the diaries that my mother kept leading up to my birth, containing the delighted entry when she first realised she was pregnant. Nine months later, in the autumn of 1977, she started labour in the wild and enchanting Tuscan countryside. At that point, it was still rare to see a woman of colour have a child with a “native” Italian like my father, but on that day, my mother no longer cared about racial stigmas. Her sole thought was of giving life. It had been 13 years since she said goodbye to her emotionally tumultuous childhood in Detroit and become Donyale Luna, beginning a journey that would see her change the nature of the fashion industry – and our understanding of beauty. Yet, just 18 months after I was born, my mother passed away from drug-related complications, leaving me to be raised by my father and his family in Europe. I no...
