00:01Today, I will be turned into Grace Jones.
00:05Diana Ross is so extra in a way that I don't know that I am ready to embody.
00:11How will I embody someone who's so strong, whose voice is so loud?
00:16I feel like I need hair. I need all the hair.
00:20Hi, my name is Pearl.
00:23My name is Dana.
00:24Hi, I'm Channing.
00:25An icon is someone who leaves an impression so great that they are talked about for years and years and
00:33years.
00:34An icon is someone who makes their mark on the world, no matter how big or no matter how small.
00:40Someone who is aspirational, yet glamorous and glorious in all the ways that I hope to be one day.
00:50My iconic style today for Grace Jones is going to include like a classic fade.
00:58I'm going for the heavy contoured makeup and lots of bright purple.
01:04I want to be a little skimpy, but also a little masculine and tight, tight clothing.
01:13I want to be a little skimpy.
01:16Erykah Badu is someone who's outside of the box.
01:20She's funny.
01:21She's eclectic.
01:22She's unique.
01:23One of a kind.
01:24Typically, you'll see Erykah Badu in either a big, huge afro, a big hat, or most infamously,
01:31she's known for a big head wrap.
01:34So with what I'm wearing today, I'm going to incorporate her use of a big hat and also her use
01:40of a big afro.
01:41She has a lot of chunky accessories.
01:44Everything is like larger than life.
01:46A current trend that I've seen her using now is she has a lot of red makeup.
01:52So like her lips are red.
01:53Her eye shadow is red.
01:54And then I want to kind of have like a tribal look as well.
01:58It's going to be big.
02:02There is a Diana Ross style and era for every moment that you possibly could want to get dressed for.
02:08My look is Diana Ross in a glittering bodysuit.
02:12She loves fur and sequins and glitter and feathers and she's not afraid to wear any of those things all
02:18at once.
02:18Diana Ross's lashes in mahogany truly are an art form.
02:22I had never seen anything like that.
02:24They were so big and so like fluttery and they look like individual like butterfly lashes.
02:29And like the lashes then paired with like the fur coat and the hat.
02:34I want to be that extra all the time.
02:37I think Grace Jones is an important icon for black women.
02:40She was one of the only representations that I saw growing up of a dark skinned woman on TV being
02:46all fancy and a model and being in movies and wearing all this glamorous clothes and makeup and stuff.
02:53It was inspiring because she was this great beauty but she didn't fit into the normal beauty standards especially at
03:00the time.
03:01She didn't have a lot of hair either.
03:03I wanted to be like Grace Jones.
03:05I wanted to paint my face up, shave my head.
03:14I love Erykah Badu because she really embraced who she was as a person, as an artist, as a mother.
03:22And I never see her stray away from the person that we met when she first came on the scene.
03:28She's authentic.
03:29She has brought to the African American culture pride and feeling like yes, I can also be a queen.
03:36We need her.
03:37We need people like her who are going to knock down those doors and say, here I am.
03:42You know, I'm different.
03:43I'm colored.
03:44I might be ugly to you, but I'm here.
03:53It's important for people to know about Diana because she gave us literally the female artist prototype.
04:00Everyone who's come from a girl group and like then broke out and became this huge thing.
04:04Diana Ross set the mold for that.
04:06Her being brown skin and I am brown skin and that sort of visibility for me growing up was
04:12incredibly important when it came time to realizing that I actually was pretty and there was more
04:17than one way to be a black woman.
04:19And I think the way that she took charge of her own career and her own image is incredibly,
04:25incredibly important.
04:38I admire Grace Jones and try to embody her through not thinking about what other people are going
04:44to think about me and I think Grace Jones didn't give a flip to what anybody thought about her.
04:54For me, when I see Erica, it's like going to an art museum.
04:59She has a message in her clothing.
05:01Each piece says something.
05:03She's not just wearing clothing just to be wearing clothing.
05:07You know, sometimes you'll see a political message.
05:09She's always expressing herself.
05:14With the fur coat and the sequins plus the hat, it feels very much like Diana Ross.
05:19It's very, very, very mahogany and I am so excited to embody that.
05:25Beauty is not just one thing.
05:27It's brown eyes, it's green eyes, it's blue eyes.
05:29It's a person who has one green eye and one brown eye.
05:32It's dark skin, it's light skin, it's everything.
05:35It's not perfect.
05:36And it's important for African American women to see themselves.
05:41We want to see all people.
