Earlier this year editor Franca Sozzani put out a Vogue Italia totally dedicated to black women. She did this in hopes of diversifying the runways in Milan. Unfortunately, this season the models were as white as they have always been. In an effort to fix this problem again Sozzani will dedicate an issue of L’Uomo Vogue to Africa.
She wanted to focus on people, projects and ideas. She did not want to make an aesthetic statement about Africa. So she didn’t fill the magazine with images of Western models in overpriced vaguely ethnic frocks. And unlike a recent issue of India’s Vogue magazine, which sparked outrage among activists and humanitarians, this one won’t show peasants posing with $5,000 handbags.
… “Fashion is not only about clothes,” Sozzani says. She broadens it so that it speaks to the vague and all-encompassing notion of identity.