Barbara Summers (September 6, 1944 – November 2014) was an American writer and educator who had also had a long and successful career as a fashion model, working for 17 years with Ford Models, one of America's top agencies. Her 1998 book, Skin Deep – the story of Black models in America and abroad – is a definitive work on black women in the modeling industry. for which she spent more a decade interviewing fashion professionals on three continents to record their experiences,