Vogue Italia July 2008: the black issue

Posted by Helen Lee at 11:17 pm June 19th, 2008 | 0 comments

The fold-out cover of Vogue Italia’s much talked about “black” July 2008 issue has been unveiled by The New York Times’ Cathy Horyn.

So who scored the cover? Liya Kebede that’s who. Meanwhile Sesilee Lopez, Jourdan Dunn and Naomi Campbell are featured in the fold out with all four models photographed by Steven Meisel. Meisel’s photographs were given approximately 100 pages for his pictures of black models, while pages of fthe magazine feature topics which are related to black women in the arts and entertainment.

Italian Vogue Editor, Franca Sozzani, says that told Horyn that “mine is not a magazine that can be accused of not using black girls”, pointing out that she has featured Naomi Campbell, Liya Kebede and Alek Wek on her covers over the years.

“Franca doesn’t realize what she’s done for people of color,” Campbell said who is featured in 20 pictures. “It reminds me of Yves (Saint laurent) using all the black models.”

Other black models who were photographed for Vogue Italia include Alek Wek, Alva Chin, Arlenis Sosa Pena, Chanel Iman, Gail O’Neil, Iman, Karen Alexander, Tyra Banks, Veronica Webb, and Yasmin Warsame.

The July 2008 issue of Italian Vogue will be on European newsstands next Thursday and international stands in the following weeks.

Check out photographs from the issue here.