Fashion: All fashion trends: all Anna Wintour trends: towards the end of the reign of the "fashion paper"?<

“Shocking”, “sloppy”, “disrespectful” and even “racist”: it is an understatement to say that the cover of the latest issue of the American edition of Vogue, which features the future vice-president of the United States, Kamala Harris, was not unanimous. In question: the choice of the image of "One", where the latter appears in a relaxed pose (it almost looks like she is twiddling her thumbs) and a casual look (simple black jacket and pair of Converse on her feet) . A general pace considered too light in view of her new status as a woman of power and, also, of the significant challenges that the country is currently facing.

It was obviously from the United States that the first criticisms came, but in France too, the image is not going well. Thus, the fashion journalist Alice Pfeiffer does not mince her words: “A codification of power would have been more judicious. Something recalling her importance, her very real power - rather than insisting on the "girl next door" side - would have been a mark of respect and recognition, which Anna Wintour obviously did not grant her. We can read a form of denigration of women, despite their position. A way of emphasizing that despite everything, she does not belong to the Vogue aristocracy, since the latter seems to refuse to grant her the luxurious treatment usually reserved for women on the cover.

First, the Vogue team was accused of having artificially bleached the skin of the first black vice-president in the history of the United States. But at present, nothing proves it and it is rather the poor quality of the lighting that is pointed out. Because this is not the first time that the "fashion bible" has been criticized for not knowing how to highlight black bodies. Last August, for example, the cover with gymnast Simone Biles was also violently criticized. The skin of the young woman appeared there as grayish.

On the other hand, the cover photograph chosen at the very last moment by Anna Wintour herself, is not the one preferred by Kamala Harris and her team. As soon as it was published, the American journalist Yasha Ali revealed that they had validated another image, where the vice-president appears with her arms crossed, in a powdered suit, in a much more powerful posture.

Yasha Ali claims that contrary to the codes in force in the fashion press, Anna Wintour would have ignored the agreement concluded with Kamala Harris, and this without warning her. A "lack of respect" which has revived a controversy that has stuck to the stilettos of the boss of Vogue for several months already: would Anna Wintour be racist? The latter defended herself in a press release, saying that there had never been a “formal agreement” with the Harris team and assuming the choice of an image “less formal, very very accessible, rooted in reality, which reflects the hallmark of the Biden/Harris campaign”.

"Anna Wintour, a colonial woman" - André Leon Talley

But these declarations will not be enough to put out the fire, because the "popess of fashion" is struggling to get out of a controversy that arose last spring. And this, even though the Condé Nast group has since 2019 set up “diversity referents” in each of the national editions of the many titles it holds (Vogue therefore, but also Vanity Fair, GQ or The New Yorker…).

In May 2020, André Leon Talley, his former collaborator and friend of 30 years, published his memoir shortly after being abruptly fired from Vogue. He drew a vitriolic portrait of Anna Wintour: "a colonial woman, belonging to a colonial environment, who does not question herself and will not let anything jeopardize or question her white privilege".

@grok___ Sounds like the one fun team building exercise, learning how to build a cool brick wall.

— Busty Shackleford Thu Oct 01 21:57:03 +0000 2020

At the beginning of June, the Instagram account @dietprada drove home the point by publishing the testimonies of former Vogue employees denouncing the wage discrimination and recurrent bullying suffered by racialized people within the editorial staff.

A few days later, after the assassination of George Floyd and the advent of the #Blacklivematter movement, Anna Wintour is again implicated. This time, it is the small number of racialized people who have appeared on the cover of the magazine that is castigated.

In the aftermath, the hashtag #voguechallenge is flourishing on social networks: nearly a million Internet users have thus reproduced a Vogue cover with a photo of themselves, in order to prove to Anna Wintour that racialized people could have more space in the pages of the magazine and celebrate a more inclusive vision of beauty.

A playful approach, but also very political, as explained by the French journalist and author, Rokhaya Diallo, a great defender of greater diversity in the media: "Like all fashion magazines, Vogue dictates the codes of beauty legitimizes and contributes to black women, but also fat or disabled, feeling devalued”.

Cornered, the Vogue boss was forced to apologize, in an internal memo that leaked to the Page Six site: "I would like to say that I know that Vogue has not found enough ways to promote and to give enough space to black editors, writers, designers and designers. We have also made mistakes, posting hurtful or intolerant images or stories. I take full responsibility."

A mea culpa went unnoticed when her colleague Samira Nasr became the very first black woman to run Harper's Bazzar, Vogue's main competitor.

In a video posted on Instagram, she announced her desire to use the magazine to increase the visibility of racialized people.

In such a context, Wintour's apology was seen as a clumsy attempt to salvage his position. Because at the time the rumors about a dismissal of Anna Wintour were going well. It was rumored that Edward Enninful, head of the British edition of Vogue, was about to replace her. It must be said that this 48-year-old journalist is on the rise on the hype scale. He was also crowned in September 2020 by Time magazine "the most important black man in world fashion".

His clearly stated ambition to showcase the diversity of British society in the magazine can be seen in every issue. For the first he directed, he featured Métis model and activist Adwoa Aboah. And last July, the three covers highlighting “women workers on the front line” in the time of Covid, went around the world.

While at the same time, Anna Wintour's American Vogue was lambasted for its unflattering front page of gymnast Simone Biles...

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The corridors of Vogue - a "racist environment"?

In October, it's downright havoc: the publication of a major investigation in the New York Times reveals the "racist environment" that reigns in the corridors of Vogue. And in particular the use of the word “piccaninny” with regard to black people. A term today unanimously considered racist, born in the time of slavery, to designate black children too young to pick up the cotton fields...

A month later, however, she was backed up by the Condé Nast group, which even offered her a promotion and made her "world manager of all the group's content".

But for how long? The controversy over the cover with Kamala Harris does not go out in the United States. And many are those who today demand his departure. After 33 years of undisputed reign on the fashion planet, Anna Wintour is today in full disgrace. As Alice Pfeiffer sums it up, “we can actually see it as an attack on the omnipotence of Wintour. "From 'popess of fashion', she becomes the traitor of present-day America". Ironically, it is indeed on this “New America” that Vogue magazine titled the cover of its last issue…

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