Audrey Smaltz: Style Icon Put Flair into Ebony Fashion Fair

'Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jellied, jammed and honeyed in Harlem,' The Ground Crew founder is a trailblazing force in the fashion industry.

By

Karen Chambers

 
Published October 08, 2024
Audrey Smaltz in her New Jersey home
Kareem Black

Audrey Smaltz, the 87-year-old founder and CEO of the backstage fashion management company, The Ground Crew, has etched out a unique place in the world of style that spans seven decades.

Harlem roots fertilized with fabulousness

Smaltz’s early exposure to style and culture began during her formative years while living in a New York City public housing project considered a revolutionary example of urban planning at its completion. It was later listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. “I had fabulous people around me. People who all went to college, grad school, and had PhDs. Famous people came out of the Harlem River Houses,” Smaltz told interviewer Harriette Cole. Psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint, the prolific author and educator best known for his consultant roles on The Cosby Show and A Different World had been a neighbor of Smaltz’s. Bob Moses, the civil rights activist who played a prominent role in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer and voting rights advocacy, lived there too.

In the 1950s, at a time when African Americans in fashion were an anomaly, Smaltz started her career breaking barriers as a teen model. She recalls her first big break came as an opportunity to pose for an event honoring center fielder Willie Mays of the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants). “It was 1954, and I was 17 or 18 years old. We made the cover of True Magazine!”

Smaltz then refined her natural sense of style and charisma attending the famed Ophelia DeVore School of Self-Development and Modeling (Diahann Carroll was another alumna). Here she received instruction from mentors such as the late-great dramatic actress, Beah Richards (Purlie Victorious, A Raisin in the Sun, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner). “She taught me how to walk, how to enter a room, how to walk up steps, how to sit down, have your knees together, and walk across a stage.” Smaltz would eventually apply those charm school skills as one the first Black contestants in the Miss New York City contest.

At six feet tall with a larger-than-life personality, it was no small wonder that Smaltz charmed her way into positions in New York’s competitive fashion buying business and eventually parlayed her fierce ambition into a successful role with the iconic Ebony Fashion Fair. As a commentator with a clever way with words, she became the vibrant voice of the internationally renowned traveling show that gave rise to the careers of countless Black models and designers.

John H. and Eunice Johnson, the founders of Ebony magazine who owned Fashion Fair, “hired me right on the spot!” recalls Smaltz. “I started with Ebony Magazine on August 13, 1970, and I stayed until August 31, 1977. It was a fabulous job!”

Her work at Ebony went beyond providing ladies of color couture-clad glimpses of themselves. Smaltz also helped the organization have an impact within the Black community. “In 51 years, Ebony Fashion Fair raised over 50 million dollars for various charities.”

Smaltz also encouraged the organization to give increased exposure to unsung African American talent. “When I got there,” she says, “I brought in more Black designers like John Westin, Scott Barry, Stephen Burrows, and Willi Smith. It was incredible!”

After seven years of learning the ins and outs of fashion, Audrey Smaltz ventured out on her own and made a name for herself by revolutionizing behind-the-scenes fashion production and management. Inspired by a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech where he noted how airplanes couldn’t depart from a runway without the support of a ground crew, Smaltz applied that same principle to the world of fashion.

In 1977, she launched The Ground Crew, a freelance team of fashion experts responsible for seamlessly managing backstage operations for major fashion houses. Season after season, she earned a reputation for being a go-to resource for prestigious clients such as Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Adrienne Vittadini and Stephen Burrows.

Audrey Smaltz professionally paved the way for greater inclusion and equity in fashion. In her personal life, she became a trailblazer in marriage equality. On November 11, 2011 (11/11/11), Smaltz married her partner, former Olympic basketball star Gail Marquis, in an intimate Central Park ceremony that made headlines in The New York Times. New York's Marriage Equality Act had just been signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo in June of that year, allowing same-sex couples to marry legally in the state for the first time.

No slowing down

When asked how she maintains her health and vitality, the vibrant octogenarian proclaims, “I still look good for 87 years old. I still wear heels…I don’t need a cane. I don’t need a crutch. I don’t need a walker, and I don’t need a wheelchair!... I walk and I ride a bicycle…I try to walk 5000 steps a day!”

With no signs of slowing down and a continued dedication to motivating others, Smaltz shares that she has an upcoming book in development that isn’t just about achievement but is also about impact. Regarding other future endeavors, she notes that, “I want to do more professional speaking, to give people incentive, willpower, charisma, just to get them going.”

Smaltz, who credits her mother with inspiring her to be a generous giver, offers Sisters these words of wisdom, “There is a door that's going to open. You just have to figure out what door that is. I can't tell you what door that is because it'll be the door that you least expect.” Most important, she urges sisters to remember that, when opportunity knocks, “know your value and ask for it!”

Karen Chambers is the former Senior Editor of Sisters newsletter and a multicultural beauty, lifestyle and branding strategist. She is a former executive with IMAN and Dark & Lovely Cosmetics, contributing writer for Black Enterprise and editor of Black Elegancemagazine. The coauthor of Beauty Stories from Around the World has guest lectured on cultural diversity and inclusion at FIT and the UN and serves as chair of the DEIB Taskforce of Cosmetics Executive Women.