vogue
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Vogue Enlists Black Artists Kerry James Marshall and Jordan Casteel to Paint History-Making September Covers
2020 has been the most dizzying year in recent memory, upending much and not enough of our sense of our security, place, and hope in the future. This disorientation is so pervasive that even the September issues of fashion magazines—which typically serve as paper bastions of luxury, privilege and aspiration—have redirected to reflect the shifting…
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Activism Now: British Vogue's September Issue Stars Several Black American Heroes—and a Message of Hope
August has only just begun, but the 2020 September issues are beginning to debut; each with its own approach to our newly socially distant, racially reawakened reality. (At this point, last September feels like another lifetime, doesn’t it?). Case in point: While a few August covers may have sparked controversy over the way their Black…
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Big Beauty Tuesday: When It Comes to Magazine Covers, What's the Line Between Art and Insult?
By now, you’ve likely seen them, heard about them, and maybe even participated in the conversation about two of August’s most striking—and controversial—magazine covers: Simone Biles photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the cover of Vogue and Viola Davis atop Vanity Fair, photographed by Dario Calmese—remarkably the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for the…
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'I Knew I Was a Token': Beverly Johnson Revisits the Trauma of #ModelingWhileBlack—Including That Time They Drained the Pool
In case you forgot, supermodel Beverly Johnson is a g—one of the originals, in fact. And the woman who walked so Naomi can strut is far from finished wielding her decades-long influence on fashion, as evidenced by her recent revelations about her groundbreaking career, which included being the first Black model to land the cover…
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Cover Stories: The #VogueChallenge Is a Black Beauty Revolution for the Fashion World
In a world currently consumed with black trauma (and copious amount of white guilt, in response), black beauty may feel like a luxury we can’t currently afford as the moment demands we keep our eye on what feels like an ever-moving goalpost. Nevertheless, beauty is not only necessary to black life, but it is a…
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'We Have Made Mistakes Too': Anna Wintour Apologizes for Vogue's Treatment of Black Talent
Vogue magazine has long been at the forefront of the fashion industry, forecasting trends that the rest of the world follows. But now, the magazine is in the rare position of working to get ahead of a cultural moment in which the fashion industry—and its publications—are being indicted for their treatment of the black talent…
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'My Blackitude Was Prominent in Everything I Did': André Leon Talley on Wearing Blackness in White Spaces
André Leon Talley’s highly anticipated second memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, just hit shelves on Tuesday and is already a New York Times bestseller. But the buzz built around the book’s supposed bombshells about fashion industry gatekeepers like Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld have arguably threatened to overshadow the larger-than-life presence that is Talley himself—as well…
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'My Memory Is Intact': Will André Leon Talley's Memoir Confirm That the Devil Does Indeed Wear Prada?
Now, we’re not ones to gossip, so you didn’t hear this from us, but word on the catwalk is that André Leon Talley is planning to serve some tea with his new memoir, The Chiffon Trenches. In fact, we’ve been hearing increasing buzz about some of the juicier bits of Talley’s tell-all, which he hopes…
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Kulture’s 1st Cover: Cardi B and Child Grace Vogue’s Not-So Regular, Degular, Schmegular Cover
“This whole year has just been a lot for me. I feel like people are just so tired of me winning. I will look for my name on Twitter, and it’s like hate tweets, hate tweets, hate tweets,” Cardi B tells Vogue in her January cover story—one of four featuring famous mothers. Acknowledging that the…
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'I Felt Pretty': For His 50th Birthday, Diddy Reflected on Life as Fashion's Bad Boy
As someone who’s spent her entire working life in the fashion and music industries (over two decades and ongoing), it remains challenging for me to think of Sean Combs as anything but “Puffy.” You see, as a Gen-Xer, I remember well his evolution from upstart promoter to music exec to entertainment juggernaut…while unfortunately, my mind…