Vogue's most Controversial Issue...

     Vogue is not only a magazine of constant influence and it does not only provide new stylistic ideas, it is also a magazine filled with controversy. Leslie Casimir, of the Houston Chronicle wrote of an all black Vogue issue release in 2008. In 2008, Vogue released an all black issue, inga fold out four page cover spread with models such as Niomi Campbell, Jourdan Dunn, Liya Kebede, and Sessillee Lopez. The magazine was a huge success. Tracy Ferguson of Jones Magazine stated, “They’re beautiful – I didn’t realize it would be this hard to get a copy” (Casimir).

     This issue of the magazine was inspired by Italian Vogue editor, Franca Sozzani. She wanted to do something about the lack of diversity within the magazine and on the runway in general. Ferguson, the editor and chief of the fashion and lifestyle quarterly, was not scared to voice her opinion that she was, “disappointed that it took a European magazine, not an American one, to deal with the hesitancy the fashion industry has long held to hire black models, claiming ‘they don’t sell’” ( Casimir). The great amount of talk and the surprising reaction to this issue shows just how much America stills need to learn to accept new ideas.

“ Film and television, for example, have been notorious in disseminating images of racial minorities which establish for audiences what people from these groups look like, how they behave, and ‘who they are.’ The power of the media lies not only in their ability to reflect the dominant racial ideology, but in their capacity to shape that ideology in the first place" (Omi).

     With overwhelming response to the magazine, it is easy to see that America has not come quite as far as many Americans like to believe, concerning racial acceptance. America is viewed as the nation of many cultures and races, so why is it that we were not the first to release a magazine issue of this kind? Does America still have lessons to learn concerning the acceptance of races other than white? If the racist issue within American were truly dead, than there would have been no reason for such an issue to raise controversy.

“Once we understand that race overflows the boundaries of skin color, super-exploitation, social stratification, discrimination and prejudice, cultural domination and cultural resistance, state policy,…once we recognize the racial dimension present to some degree in every identity, institution and social practice in the United States ---once we have done this, it becomes possible to speak of racial formation" (Omi).

Vogue Magazine