Seventeen featured teenage Whitney Houston as one of its first women-of-color cover models.
Houston appeared on the November 1981 cover of Seventeen, while she was still a teenager and before her recording career made her a global star. The appearance reflected an early modeling career that ran alongside her vocal training and school years.
The cover was significant because mainstream American fashion and teen magazines offered relatively few prominent opportunities to Black models. Houston’s appearance helped make her visible to young readers well before songs such as “Saving All My Love for You” and “How Will I Know?” reached the charts.
Houston also worked as a model for other publications, including Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Young Miss. A common mix-up is to remember those magazines and choose Cosmopolitan, but Seventeen is the publication associated with this landmark teenage cover. Her modeling work ended up being an early public chapter in a career soon dominated by music.