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This Is How We Do It: Essence's September Issue—Starring Naomi!—Is a Study in Black Excellence
Leave it to Essence to remind us what black excellence looks like on both sides of the camera. Making their contribution to a season of intense black girl magic—where we are covering a full 50 percent of the 2018 fall fashion issues—the legendary black women’s magazine shows us exactly how excellent a product by a…
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'I Really Stepped Into Myself': Lena Waithe Says Cutting Her Hair Liberated Her from Gender Norms
Lena Waithe doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for who she is, how she loves or why she cut her famous locs last month; but the writer, actress and producer graciously gave one to Vanity Fair’s cameras while on the red carpet for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Grants Banquet on Thursday night. After joking that…
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We Have September Issues: Black Women Are Covering Magazines, But Who's Behind the Lens?
A funny thing happened while we were basking in the glow of cover after cover of fashion magazines featuring black faces this September: We came across an absolutely gorgeous cover of Issa Rae on Ebony’s Fall Fashion Issue. Stunning in a black tulle Vera Wang ballgown while striking a ballerina’s pose, Rae was the epitome…
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This Is Not a Drill: Love Meghan Markle's Club Monaco Dress? It's Being Restocked Friday Morning
Obsessed with Meghan Markle’s royal style, but don’t have a million-dollar clothing budget? Here’s your chance to play twinsies with the Duchess of Sussex (if you’re into that kind of thing)—without breaking the bank. After Markle wore the $328 “Shoanah” shirtdress to the wedding of Prince Harry’s pal Charlie Straubenzee last Saturday (which also happened…
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Grown-ish Is Cute, But Yara Shahidi Wants You to Get Politically Involved
Don’t ask Yara Shahidi to choose between being an ingenue and a serious intellectual; the 18-year-old is already one of several young black actresses breaking the mold when it comes to young Hollywood talent—not only for being non-messy, but for being socially conscious and civically-minded. In a cover story for the August 8 issue of…
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Aja Naomi King Gets Powerful for the Cover of Shape's September Issue
“All the things I’m involved in now are about women standing up for themselves,” How to Get Away with Murder’s Aja Naomi King tells Shape magazine as its September issue cover girl. Joining an unprecedented number of black women (and Kanye and kids) covering 2018’s fall fashion issues, King, also an ambassador for L’Oréal Paris,…
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Killer Curves: BET and La La Anthony Take an Intimate Look at an Obsession That's Killing Us
“What is beautiful? Who wrote the book on what the (bleep) beautiful is?” text They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but as black women, we know all too well the dichotomy between mainstream beauty norms and the ones upheld within our culture—many of which have been appropriated and regurgitated by the…
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About a Boy, a Bey and a Devil Who Wears Prada: What's Really Good With Vogue's September Issue?
They can’t let us have anything. In tandem with the debut of Beyoncé’s historic September 2018 Vogue cover, an expected flurry of scrutinizing think-pieces have ensued—along with a very uncomfortable debate over the relevance of Beyoncé’s cover story, and who’s entitled to claim credit for Vogue booking their first black photographer to shoot the cover…
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Money Moves: Cardi B and Offset Are Already Planning Kulture Kiari's Possible Retail Empire
Looks like rap royalty Cardi B and husband Offset are already planning for their little princess to be a future mogul; according to documents obtained by The Blast, the new parents recently filed to trademark their 1-month-old daughter’s name. Submitting the paperwork on August 2 under one of Offset’s companies, Sallie Smith, LLC, the couple…
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Orange Is the New Nude: Dascha Polanco Is a Study In Self-Love In September's Women's Health
Dascha Polanco isn’t the first person who comes to mind when we think “body issues”—after all, this is a woman who once went pants-free to New York Fashion Week. But in a revealing new “as told to” feature in the September issue of Women’s Health, the Orange Is the New Black star shares that she…

