So I was pleased to receive the July issue of Vogue Magazine in my mailbox.
I knew that this was the issue where they would publish letters regarding the whole Lebron/Giselle/King Kong snafu.
I knew there had to be at least a handful of reader letters, and I was ready to delve in…and I was reading to see if perhaps the magazine would issue an apology.
I looked at the Editor’s Note…no sign.
Then I looked in the letters section:
And saw two letters.
One was from Christine Fox, who says plaintitively, “I‘m an African-American woman who sees nothing wrong with the cover…I know there has been a lot of buzz about it, and folks are outraged, but it’s ridiculous! It is just fashion…dahling…don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” A voice, true, but one that was a minority, right? When I blogged about it briefly here, only a couple of you said “What’s the big deal?” And mind you, this was a cover written about in the Chicago Tribune, Women’s Wear Daily, and ABC News.
The second letter published in Vogue was from Stephanie Jackson. She says, “The April cover bothers me…More devastating than the perpetuation of stereotypes in mainstream culture is the dismissal of the counterargument as if it doesn’t make sense. If controversial imagery rubs a minority group the wrong way, shouldn’t the appropriate response be an apology?”
She brings up a good point: shouldn’t there have been an apology??
Then I kept flipping, and found it. Sort’ve. There’s an article in there called “Is Fashion Racist?”
Basically it profiles Chanel Iman, Jourdan Dunn, and rising star Arlenis.
It talks about their fortuitious careers, then basically recaps the past three “Blacks in Fashion” talks that The Fashion Bomb has been covering since last September.
It also has a beautiful spread profiling all the instances in Vogue history with black models (maybe taking a cue from Italian Vogue).
Was that the apology? To be like…here, we see you, we know the issues, we get it??
I guess so.
But something just seemed very lame about it all.
I applaud their effort to quell the fire, and do see that PR powerhouse Bonnie Morrison is pictured in the Index Section…
…Jourdan Dunn makes another appearance in Andre Leon Talley’s ‘Life with Andre‘ section…
And our favorite African-American socialite Genevieve Jones is sprinkled into the Society pictures…
Good job?
Keep it up, I guess.
An apology would’ve been admitting guilt, right?
What do you think?
I knew that this was the issue where they would publish letters regarding the whole Lebron/Giselle/King Kong snafu.
I knew there had to be at least a handful of reader letters, and I was ready to delve in…and I was reading to see if perhaps the magazine would issue an apology.I looked at the Editor’s Note…no sign.
Then I looked in the letters section:
And saw two letters.One was from Christine Fox, who says plaintitively, “I‘m an African-American woman who sees nothing wrong with the cover…I know there has been a lot of buzz about it, and folks are outraged, but it’s ridiculous! It is just fashion…dahling…don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” A voice, true, but one that was a minority, right? When I blogged about it briefly here, only a couple of you said “What’s the big deal?” And mind you, this was a cover written about in the Chicago Tribune, Women’s Wear Daily, and ABC News.
The second letter published in Vogue was from Stephanie Jackson. She says, “The April cover bothers me…More devastating than the perpetuation of stereotypes in mainstream culture is the dismissal of the counterargument as if it doesn’t make sense. If controversial imagery rubs a minority group the wrong way, shouldn’t the appropriate response be an apology?”
She brings up a good point: shouldn’t there have been an apology??
Then I kept flipping, and found it. Sort’ve. There’s an article in there called “Is Fashion Racist?”
Basically it profiles Chanel Iman, Jourdan Dunn, and rising star Arlenis.
It talks about their fortuitious careers, then basically recaps the past three “Blacks in Fashion” talks that The Fashion Bomb has been covering since last September.It also has a beautiful spread profiling all the instances in Vogue history with black models (maybe taking a cue from Italian Vogue).
Was that the apology? To be like…here, we see you, we know the issues, we get it??I guess so.
But something just seemed very lame about it all.
I applaud their effort to quell the fire, and do see that PR powerhouse Bonnie Morrison is pictured in the Index Section…
…Jourdan Dunn makes another appearance in Andre Leon Talley’s ‘Life with Andre‘ section…
And our favorite African-American socialite Genevieve Jones is sprinkled into the Society pictures…
Good job?Keep it up, I guess.
An apology would’ve been admitting guilt, right?
What do you think?
