Vogue cover models. They’re stunning. They’re these other-worldly beings of incredible, unattainable beauty and regularly make me mutter ‘Christ *how* did you get your eyebrows to look like THAT‘. To be a Vogue cover model means you’ve 100% made it as a Verified Fashionable Person™.
Well, the cover of the March issue of Vogue Paris has landed and it features 10/10 model Valentina Sampaio looking incredible as all hell. What makes this issue – which is typically one of the mag’s biggest releases every year – is that Valentina is now the first-ever transgender model to grace the front of the iconic fashion bible.
Not only is the inclusion of a trans model an absolutely history-making power move by Vogue Paris, but the whole issue is about celebrating the beauty of transgender people through its pages.
The fkn Editor-in-Chief, Emanuelle Alt used the release to make a strong statement about why Vogue Paris used the power of their print mag to spark conversation about gender equality within the fashion industry.
“It’s a detail one would prefer not to have to mention, a ubiquitous detail in these women’s lives that they didn’t ask for and a detail one imagines they want to forget,” Emanuelle wrote on the Vogue Paris website.“But Valentina is on the cover of Vogue this month, not just for her looks or her sparkling personality, but because despite herself she embodies an age-old, arduous struggle to be recognised and not to be perceived as something Other, a gender exile.”
No srsly, how do you do that with yr brows. (Photo: VOGUE / Mert & Marcus.)
There’s no doubt that conversation and perceptions surrounding gender are shifting. For the editor of a magazine as big as Vogue Paris to come out and recognise that the fight is only won when editorials written primarily around the fact that a model is a transgender woman are no long necessary – it’s a pretty fucking huge deal.
Maybe the more noise that influential types make about this kinda stuff, the more wider society will start to quit othering folks. It’d be a bit bloody nice.
The edition hits stands from Feb 23, so get yourself to your nearest newsagent for the sweet, sweet import delivery.
Source: Vogue.
Photo: Vogue / Mert & Marcus.
Photo: Vogue / Mert & Marcus.
