VOGUE ITALIA- ALL BLACK ISSUE

In July of 2008, Vogue Italia released an ‘All-Black Issue’. Vogue Italia is considered to be the best edition of Vogue there is and with a reputation as the top fashion magazine within the world and every aspiring and working model’s dream, what’s not to boast about this incredible publication? However despite the raging success of this high fashion magazine, Vogue is also known for some things which are slightly less positive, especially in the 21^st century.  Being such a successful and high end magazine, Vogue don’t necessarily feel the need to obey by any particular rules and whilst other magazines are becoming well known for adding women of international races across the covers of their issues, Vogue are known for using predominantly models of Caucasian backgrounds on their covers and across the pages; the lack of diversity spread across their issues is something which has becoming increasingly noticeable within the fashion and media world, so naturally when rumour had it that their July issue was to be an ‘All black Issue’ and especially as it wasn’t just Vogue, it was Vogue Italia, fashionistas all over the world held their breaths anticipating this unexpected issue and what it would contain, and naturally in true Vogue Italia style, it flew off shelves worldwide, was fabulous and completely disregarded the myth that ‘Black women on the front don’t sell magazines’. The issue had four different covers and each one sported a different model, them being; Naomi Campbell, Liya Kebede, Sessilee Lopez and London’s very own Jourdan Dunn.

Dodai Stewart a writer for jezebel.com wrote an article called ‘Vogue All-Black-Issue; A Guided Tour’ regarding the famous issue as soon as it was released back in 2008. Although the writer talks about the interesting images and the striking black models featured within the pages; she also claims that between the pages of editorial content with black faces, the ads in between continue to have white faces. ‘Flipping through the much-hyped issue is interesting: After the pull-out cover featuring four striking close ups (Liya Kebede, Sessilee Lopez, Jourdan Dunn and Naomi Campbell), the next thirteen pages of ads — for Valentino, Prada, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and Dior — all feature white faces.’ Although I understand where the writer is coming from with this comment, the reality of this is that Vogue is a magazine with an already established target audience and honestly there aren’t many high end campaigns featuring black models, therefore although the issue is supposedly to be ‘All black’ the reality is that only meant the editorials, the content within the ad’s is not within their control and the target audience of Vogue is predominantly Caucasian therefore they need to remain some familiarity within the pages so they are doing something unique and diverse but still providing the readers with familiar content and ad’s that are relevant to their taste and identity.

The writer ends the article with; ‘There’s one last “Black on Black” shoot, but it pales (heh) in comparison to the rest, so I didn’t even bother scanning it. But after counting black models on runways and in magazines and finding them ignored by the fashion industry, this much-anticipated issue really delivered.
Is it a gimmick? Yes. But the fact remains that flipping through the issue and seeing page after page of gorgeous black women can act as a reminder to editors, stylists, modelling agencies and consumers — that beauty comes in many forms. It can be edgy, irreverent, weird, pretty, strong and avant-garde — while being black. While perhaps some may be upset that it took a “stunt” like this to throw a spotlight on the issue of the lack of diversity in magazines and runways, it’s actually a beautiful souvenir, a keepsake to remember these troubled times. A protest song in photograph form. Never has the racism issue looked quite so stunning.’ I agree with this final paragraph because of the fact that Vogue is an internationally recognised magazine and is well respected by so many people within the fashion/media world, I agree with Stewart when she says that this throws a spotlight on the lack of diversity issue and I think it proved to a lot of people that beauty isn’t a particular way, it comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes and races, and although it may considered a ‘’stunt’’ by some people, for a lot of younger people around the world it could be considered as inspiration and an eye-opener for those already within the industry. Although I think the idea of the All-Black-Issue was incredibly interesting, especially coming from Vogue, I think that people often forget that the world isn’t just ‘black and white’ there are a whole lot of races in between which aren’t recognised in not only Vogue, but magazines across the globe, Asian women, Hispanic Women, Mixed Raced Women and several others are completely forgotten by people and the lack of representations of these races within magazines is questionable and I wonder why only Caucasian and even black women, seem to be the only ones recognised.






















Read Dodai Stewart’s full article here[14th July 2008]: http://jezebel.com/5024967/italian-vogues-all-black-issue-a-guided-tour