"Special Edition"

It’s interesting how the July 2008 issue of Italia Vogue is seen as a “special edition” because it's an all black issue. There’s not going to be a “special edition” for white women because they’re already on the covers of fashion magazines, making that our cultural “norm” and standard for beauty. The July issue shows that having a lot of black women in a magazine isn’t considered apart of the “norm”, unless it’s Ebony or Essence.

After the issue was distributed, people had an array of negative and positive responses. Some people responded to online blogs, such as Thread Trend and Jezebel saying that this a little too late, while others say that this is a step forward or reality check to bring back black models to the fashion industry, and also start putting more on magazine covers.

According to West Australian newspaper, Franca Sozzani, editor of Italia Vogue said to Presse-Agentur DPA that she first got the idea of the all black issue during a conversation with the successful black supermodel Naomi Campbell, and was further inspired by the United State’s presidential primary race between Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen.Hillary Clinton.

Sozzani said that the change that America is going through with having their first black presidential candidate was a part of the inspiration to have her magazine feature all black subjects and models, and to represent different faces of beauty.

This was supposed to be an all black issue, but while flipping through the pages, between the editorial material about black issues, people, and news are advertisements that have white people in them, making the issue not exactly what it was publicized and anticipated to be.

The celebrity photographer, Steven Meisel, shot the pictures for the issue. He shared his theory about why black women aren’t on the runways as much anymore to New York Magazine, saying that a part of the reason may be rooted from either or both fashion designers and magazine editors.

They’re the ones who have the upper hand on what’s in or out when it comes to content in the magazines or who they want to wear their clothes down the runway.

He also mentioned how advertisers are connected to the content of magazines, because they choose who to cast in the advertisements.

Meisel said that when he shoots ads, sometimes he asks the advertisers if they can use a black woman instead, and they would say no, because advertisers think that they won’t make money if they product is associated to a non-white.

Some of the models that are in the issue are familiar and new faces such as Iman, Tyra Banks, Naomi Cambell, Jourdan Dunn, Karen Alexander, Alek Wek, and even the plus-size America’s Next Top Model contestant Tocarra Jones, who Sozzani didn’t want in the issue at first.

Although many people felt that Meisel’s photography was very tasteful and beautiful, others felt that the models were still styled in a “white beauty” type of way from their hair or their makeup, that some of the nudity was unnecessary, or that they didn’t like how some of the models were wearing animal print or furs giving off the look of being animalistic.

People can either see Italia Vogue’s effort in a positive, genuine way to break open the door again for black models in the fashion industry or a way to make money because it was a “special edition”, but at the end it’s hard to pin point who’s at fault when it comes to the lack of diversity in magazines, because the people in power are interconnected in many ways and are driven by their society’s culture and belief of what’s attractive and marketable to who they feel will keep their magazines alive.