Italian Vogue Shows Blacks Starving for Images

On July 1, a black friend went into a New York City magazine store and, unprompted, was asked if he was seeking "the diversity issue" of Italian Vogue. "Everyone has been asking for it," the clerk promptly explained. This incident isn't supposed to be a story of racial profiling, but an illustration of the significance of an all-black issue of Vogue within the fashion-aware community, particularly in New York and among blacks.

The New York Times's Cathy Horyn has written poignantly about the issue, interviewing the main photographer, Steven Meisel, as well as Italian Vogue's editor-in-chief, Franca Sozzani. Asked about the genesis of such unprecedented coverage, Sozzani says that she was inspired as much by seeing black girls on the streets of New York as by Barack Obama's stunning rise and visibility. Meanwhile, the blogs have been burning with gleeful anticipation, but they reached a fever pitch after the image of a turban-clad Tyra Banks was leaked along with four different covers for the issue. I also wrote a profile on some black talents working in the industry, so we've been busy chronicling coverage of our own inclusion in the issue (see here).

We hit up all the international magazine stores in New York after word spread that the issue had landed Stateside, but time and again we were told that it was already sold out. One store clerk advised that we "come early" the next day and another vendor explained that he had copies on hold for 40 of his loyal customers. When we finally scored an issue at midnight on Friday at Universal News on 14th street, Amir, the clerk, informed us that 400 people had already tried to buy one earlier that day. After our visit he had only four more on the shelves and was soon down to three after Nekesha Batchoukou, a modelesque black woman, dashed up to the door and demanded a copy before the gates went down. "I've been searching for one since last week," she told us breathlessly.

Now that the edition is out, the impact surpasses the beautiful photos of models like Sessilee Lopez, Iman, Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, Chanel Iman, Yasmine Warsame, Toccara Jones, Liya Kebede, Jourdan Dunn and Alek Wek. It's a touching testament to blacks being starved of seeing their images in the prominent pages of fashion magazines. For now, everyone can quench their thirst by securing a copy of this breakthrough issue as a memento to the beginning (we all hope) of a more representative fashion industry.

The editorial is all in Italian so we'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions about the coverage of Essence and Ebony magazines, the essay by Robin Givhan, and the interview with Bethann Hardison. And yet, before getting to these "black stories," all of the advertising—with the exception of a Naomi-endorsed campaign for Pinko—featured only white models. Therein lies the statement behind Givhan's apt inquiry: "What will happen next month?"

—Jason Campbell