Every month I eagerly await the arrival of Vogue magazine in my mailbox. To really understand the business of fashion, which happens to be the actual name of another monthly subscription, digital, that I peruse each morning, you must be aware of the tools of the trade and what makes fashion relevant to insiders, marketing executives, and the big brass that hold the purse strings that makes the whole contraption ambulate. Vogue is the quintessential must have for anyone who calls themselves a lover of fashion or happens to be connected to anything that even remotely encounters fashion or the business of. The first time I ever flipped through Vogue was when I was a little Brown girl standing in line at the local Farmer Jack grocery store with my mother. Farmer Jack no longer exists. But Vogue remains firmly planted in the consciousness and the hands of every fashionista. However, as an African American journalist, my gaze into the world of fashion narrows into a laser-sharp focus that unintentionally, yet rightly, has a need to explore the African American and African presence in all aspects of fashion.

Vogue and the fashion world in general have a serious issue when it comes to racism. The lack of diversity of the industry from the invisibility of African American fashion journalists and editors to the sparse representation of African American designers featured in magazines such as Vogue has been well documented. The first issue of Vogue was published on Dec. 17, 1892, 27 years after the Civil War ended in 1865. The first African American to be featured in Vogue and on the cover was iconic model Beverly Johnson in 1974, photographed by Francesco Scavullo. Scavullo (1921-2004) was a legendary photographer whose portfolio is a literal who’s who of 20th-century fame such as Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Christy Turlington, Lena Horne, Diana Ross, Janis Joplin, Cher, Iman and RuPaul. Almost 50 years after that groundbreaking moment, there is still this struggle, a war with diversity, a push-and-pull type of energy. African Americans have graced the pages of Vogue, and sporadically pepper the contributor landscape, but in a roundabout effort to circumvent our presence or minimalize it, Vogue occasionally with vigor misses the mark.

In the advertising lead-up to the September 2022 issue of Vogue, the focus was on, and rightfully so, tennis star Serena Williams’ retirement announcement. The article written by Williams at her request, was vague, a little whiny, and lackluster. What did she reveal? Only that she is retiring and really doesn’t want to. Serena’s Vogue cover is nicely shot but her overall appearance leaves a lot to be desired. Her make-up and hair is unimaginative and amateur. The cover is not iconic.

But also in the September issue is a feature on newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The article is well-written and introspective. Washington D.C. public defender ImeIme Umana wrote a very poignant piece surrounding her own personal reflection of what Jackson’s ascension to the highest court in the land means to her as a woman of African descent and as an attorney. It is the accompanying pictures that became fodder for social media, and rightly so. The two pictures of Jackson, shot by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, cast her in a dark, gloomy overcast. Even though the setting for the first photo appears to be at dawn at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., symbolic in retrospect, Leibovitz creates an effect that that gives off a sinister energy. As if to say, “this is the dawning of a new era for the Supreme Court. Unfortunately.” The second portrait of Jackson has her in front of a giant white pillar, with the Lincoln statue in the background. The setting itself in real life is an alabaster marble white. In the picture, the pillars are shadowy, Jackson is dark and suggestively in the shadows, while Abraham Lincoln is sitting proudly in contrasting white. Bright white. Now, Jackson more than likely approved the final pictures that she desired to be published. Yet the question is, was this the best of the bunch?

The next article is a feature on new creative director Matthieu Blazy at Bottega Veneta. Three of the Nigerian and Sudanese models grouped together on subsequent pages of David Sims’ article wearing Bottega Veneta were photographed by Brazilian photographer Rafael Pavarotti – the same photographer who came under fire for the problematic February 2022 British Vogue. The main criticism? The lighting. Why, in all our Black beautifulness, while celebrating that beauty, offer a slice of shade and a glass of hater-aid with it? In this issue, to his credit, Pavarotti got it right. But Leibovitz makes it a habit of getting it wrong. Going all the way back to 1984 and Leibovitz’s photograph of Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub of white milk with only her head, arms, and legs exposed, Leibovitz has a way of interpreting art through her camera lens that distorts the beauty of African American women. Is it so insidious that she is not consciously aware? Or does this all lie at the discretion of Global Editorial Director and Artistic Director of Conde Nast publications, and Vogue magazine Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour? Throughout the September issue of Vogue there are women of color showcased modeling this season’s finest from Louis Vuitton to Collina Strada, Montcler and Balenciaga. The lighting on these models is intentional and with one purpose: to sell fashion. What Wintour and other bigwigs in the industry are refusing to understand is that we as people of African descent live, love and breathe fashion. We ARE fashion. American fashion and what it has become today only exists because of our fashion sensibilities and creativity. History, no matter how hard Gov. Ron DeSantis attempts to thwart and rewrite it, cannot be undone. Wintour made a vow to do better. We are here to remind her of this and to continue to hold her proverbial feet to the fire.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The most influential African American weekly newspaper in South Florida