Pat Cleveland Talks Her Paris Years & a Visit From Karl Lagerfeld’s Ghost

In the 1960s, as a teenager, you were discovered by a Vogue editor so taken with your look that she chased after you in the subway. By the 1970s, you had become one of fashion’s first prominent Black models. Ever since, you’ve been beautifying the world through modeling, painting, drawing, designing clothes, dancing, and singing. Tell me about the role the arts have played in your life.

Well, growing up in Spanish Harlem with a mother who is a painter had everything to do with everything. Wonderful musicians came into my life because she loved jazz and was always at the [Harlem music venue] Red Rooster. That’s how she met my father, who was a Swedish saxophonist. My auntie was a dancer for [African American modern dance pioneer] ­Katherine Dunham. At that time, African dancing was exotic and a bit taboo. I became the mascot for Dunham, and I would hang off the ballet barre while everybody was dancing across the floor to the drumbeat. I would see Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe at the studio.

As a young model, you met Andy Warhol and his set at a party Stephen Burrows took you to. They instantly embraced you. How were you so comfortable so quickly in the art world?

Birds of a feather flock together! Everybody wasn’t famous at the time. We were struggling. Andy had beautiful people who today are so well known. We all just loved each other because we were growing up together. And designers like Halston and Stephen Burrows, they were just regular human beings wanting to make everything beautiful.

In 1971, you felt your career was stalling—you were losing top assignments to blonde or European models. You moved from New York to Paris.

I had to leave America. I couldn’t go any further. This kind of girl that I am did not fit in with the American commercial point of view. I had to go where it was more international, so I went to Paris. It was a really big event for me. I saved all my money, I studied French, I packed my pink Samsonite bag, and I went. The Andy Warhol gang—Donna Jordan, Corey Grant Tippin, and Antonio Lopez— were the hot thing. And if you knew Andy, oh my god, when you arrived in Europe, everybody had to know you. And so we were that little group, and Karl Lagerfeld was like our big brother. He fed us steak and champagne and let us live in his ­ little sweet apartment, sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor, toes to nose. It was like entering the inner sanctum of the Parisian couture world. Madame Grès and Yves Saint Laurent and everybody flocked around us.

Once you got to Paris, you began appearing in all the magazines and walking in runway shows. You were even part of the famous Battle of ­ Versailles fashion show, in 1973, paving the way for other models of color.

Well, it’s like being an artist. I paint, and when you mix a color and you find colors that expand your palette, you say, “Ah, there it is.” Everyone’s fashion palette was expanded because they saw that girls of color had a significance, and there was a market for it.

In 2019, you battled colon cancer. How did you overcome that?

One night in Paris, my belly swelled up like a watermelon. I had an emergency operation. They removed my entire colon. But I said to the surgeon, “Listen, I cannot have an ostomy bag because I model.” He said, “Wait a minute. I have a special cut I do. May I do it?” I said, “Yes! Give me the couture cut!” The operation cost almost $200,000. So all my friends mounted a GoFundMe ­ campaign, and everybody chipped in. When I was in the hospital, I suddenly saw Karl sitting on the edge of my bed, and he said, “Darling, don’t worry, you’re going to be all right.” I told the nurse, and she said, “Oh yes, Lagerfeld died here on the fifth floor a week ago.” I had a visitation from Karl.

You’re now 75 years old. What do you like to wear?

A bathing suit! This is one of mine. [Cleveland points to the pink and brown string bikini she’s wearing for our interview] I make the pattern; I do the fabric. I love summer and swimming.

What’s your approach to beauty?

When you put makeup on, it’s an adventure of who you can become. It’s like a war mask, like dressing your face. I call my eyelashes the high heels of my eyes.

What advice would you give to older women?

You can still dream. I’m 75, and just being alive is a dream come true. Make sure you look at the sun and be grateful it’s shining, and enjoy the rain. Take a little time in nature. Touch a tree, pet a pet. You don’t have to be a teenager. You are a magician of life.

Hair by Dre Demry Sanders for Bumble & Bumble at MA Group; makeup by Janessa Paré for Bobbi Brown at Streeters; Photo Assistant: Shen William-Cohen; Retouching: INK Studio; Fashion Assistant: Krystin Williams; Hair Assistant: Marvin Tarver.