The Metropolitan Museum Art of Salutes Eunice W. Johnson

Linda Johnson Rice and Sanya Richards

Bill Clinton
Susan Fales-Hill
Desiree Rogers
Anna Wintour

People are still learning about the passing of Eunice W. Johnson, the co-founder of Johnson Publishing Company, creator of the Ebony Fashion Fair traveling fashion show and founder of Fashion Fair Cosmetics. Messages continue to pop up on Facebook a week after the 93-year-old’s death. Her name is a top Google search. Robust obituaries and commentaries have made the rounds of television and some of the largest newspapers in the country, including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times.

Today in New York City there was a different kind of event honoring Mrs. Johnson’s life. An event in the making for the past eight months, its timing was curious and impeccable. As you might imagine, when the team designing this event learned that Mrs. Johnson had passed, there were plenty of questions about whether or how it would go on. What was to be a tribute honoring her life ended up remaining just that. It wasn’t a funeral or memorial. It was a celebration befitting a legend who was Eunice Walker Johnson.

Working with Linda Johnson Rice who went through Ebony Fashion Fair archives to find some of the most stunning gowns from the show’s 52-year history, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City celebrated the life and legacy of Eunice Walker Johnson. Coordinated by The Met’s Costume Institute and MADI, the Multicultural Audience Development Initiative, with many hours of legwork by the Institute’s Harold Koda, Harold Holzer and MADI’s Donna Williams and their teams, this was an event to remember. Continue reading here.

Photo credits: wireimage/gettyimages/rexfeatures