Vogue All Model Cover - Jourdan Dunn and Liya Kebede

source: TFS/Luxx

Shot by Steven Meisel. I'd read that Liya and Jourdan would be on the cover of this issue so I guessed that one of them would be on the cover while the other would be on the fold-out. That makes three issues in a row that Vogue has featured a black face on the cover of the magazine, which I never thought would have happened even a year ago. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a "Weekend at Bernie's" situation going on between at Condé Nast and ALT is really calling the shots these days. I don't like how pasted together all the heads look on this cover but Liya and Jourdan look beautiful.

Inside there is an article called "Sam's Club" on makeup artist Sam Fine with an accompanying editorial featuring Liya Kebede, Chanel Iman and Arlenis got snapped for the "Meet the Boyfriends" spread, while "Kicking It" and "The Godfather" spreads features Naomi Campbell among others.

I'm looking forward to getting this one in the mail. Your thoughts?

ETA: More photos

Liya Kebede to becomes J. Crew "exclusive"

The Ethiopian model and J. Crew creative directory Jenna Lyons have struck up a partnership that will see Kebede become the first model to be the exclusive face of a J. Crew catalog. The deal also allows J. Crew to carry a selection of Kebede's handmade children's clothing line, Lemlem (which is made in Ethiopia.) The line and the catalog will be available in April.

Source: IMG, TFS/fer19dog

Liya Kebede & Jourdan Dunn - Vogue - Feb. 2009

"It's a Madcap World" - Photographed by Steven Meisel

Sorry for the small images (I'll try to remember to replace them whenever I get the new issue in the mail.)

source: Sansartifice

Liya Kebede for LANVIN Fall/Winter '08

 

Sadly Liya has to share this campaign with Raquel Zimmerman but that doesn't stop her from looking stunning. 

Source: Luxx and Skywire/TFS

"From Here to Timbuktu"

I think I've touched on why fashion shoots in "exotic" (read non-Western) locals tend to get under my skin. The main issue for me is the tendency for the photographer to use whatever local is handy as a prop and/or or exploit the model's own ethnicity if she happens to be non-White. I've lost count of how many times I've seen British/Jamaican Naomi Campbell dressed as an African villager on the pages of Elle and Vogue.

This kind of shoot is always lazy and sometimes just plain offensive to me but it is a fashion industry staple, just like pictures of models jumping in expensive clothes in American Vogue.

But would the images be as potentially offensive if instead of a white model, a black one was used? Turns out the answer is "sorta" thanks to Vogue's "From Here to Timbuktu" shoot photographed by Mikael Jansson for their June 2008 issue.

Here are the good things. The photographs are beautiful as is the African* model, Liya Kebede. Okay so she's not from Mali but they get points for not trying to dress her in traditional garments right? Unlike many of the models usually used in these themed spreads, Kebede looks genuinely happy to be in Timbuktu in these vibrant photographs that could conceivable come from someone's own scrapbook if the person in question was extremely fabulous. There is only one photo of the model in a actual safari jacket (this one priced at $385 by DVF if you are interested.) No spread like this is complete without a safari jacket, is it?

What really got my attention with this pictorial was the travel diary, written by Sally Singer, which accompanied it. Singer, who describes Timbuktu as a "sandbox at the end of the Earth" that feels to her like the "most priviledged of all playgrounds." Her tone does in words what wasn't quite captured in the photographs, that this country exists solely for the amusement of Westerners that can afford to travel there, it is a playground full of interesting children who are just dying to take one's perfectly manicured hand and show you around the place. One major difference is that thanks to designers like Oscar de la Renta who has "expertly crafted" mudcloth into his Spring '08 collection, everyone wearing the traditional textile in Mali looks like they've "stepped off the Dries Van Noten catwalk." She even takes calling her local guide Oscar as an homage to the designerr because of the tabard mudcloth garment he is wearing. There's no mention of what his real name is.

I must say that I agree with her , it is a relief to take pictures of locals and not have their outfits clash with yours. For example, my husband and I were in Paris last month and I had to spend countless hours on Photoshop editing out all those unsightly natives wearing last season's Agnes B. Quel horreur!

photo source: Faith Akiyama/TFS

*I say African here rather than Ethiopian here intentionally. Even though Liya's East African features stand out in the crowds of Malians surrounding her, in Vogue's view one black person (or African person) is just the same as another.

UK Harper's Bazaar - Liya Kebede - May 2008

Source: miss_nyc/TFS

Liya Kebede - "Togo Land"

From New York Times Magazine Style Issue. Photographed by Fabien Baron
photo source: imgmodels.com

In other Blogs...

A post called "Darker Skinned Glamour Girls" on Racialicious caught my eye this morning. In it Latoya Peterson wrote about something she noticed while paging through an issue of the UK beauty magazine "Pride." She writes:

Hmm, I thought to myself, they have a lot of dark skinned women in this magazine. Wonder why?

Then I wondered to myself why I thought it would be strange to have dark skinned women in a magazine that caters to black women. That should have been a no-brainer. So why was I surprised?

and later,

It just seems like fashion has a specific look that is acceptable for dark skinned women. It is almost as if the woman is not dark with close cropped hair and a bone-thin physique, she simply does not exist.

I've had that same thought go through my head. Nothing will get me to pause on a page longer than the inclusion of a woman with dark skin. It's like I'm staring at a unicorn or something.

Aside from Naomi, off the top of my head I'm having a little trouble thinking of a "glamour girl" model who has very dark skin and honestly even Naomi is probably somewhere in the middle of our color spectrum.

This is not to imply that they aren't out there but when one does see them, they usually fall into a certain mold.

There seems to be a handful of lovely Africans dividing up some of the crumbs brushed down to non-white models in the industry but in spite of the many different types of beauty represented on that continent, most fashion mucks seem to only want to focus on the girls with keen features like Liya Kebede or the cropped hair darker skinned models like Alek or Ajuma.

The first type can appear in the Estee Lauder and Tiffany and Co. ads while the latter is going to see a lot of leopard skin in the course of her career.

Of course there are exceptions.

Sessilee Lopez is currently appearing in ads for Lanvin but her dark skin is seemingly used as one the stylist's props.

Also, Naomi is still thriving in her career but she is such an icon at this point that it hardly seems fair to compare her success to the plight of a model of color with no real name recognition. Her ads for Pinko (see above photo) has the feel of a celebrity endorsement.

Of course, none of this is new especially in this industry but I always find myself hoping that one of these days I'll be surprised in a good way when paging through a mag.

photo source: TFS/simplylovely

US Vogue - March 2008 - Liya Kebede

Photographer: Norman Jean Roy
Image Source: TFS/Luxx

Liya Kebede and daughter Rahee in Cookie Magazine

I've read exactly one issue of Cookie Magazine. I bought it on a whim one day and quickly regretted it because I found the overall tone of it to be a wee bit too pretentious for my taste.

The only article I can recall was about the situation one posh mom encountered when she found that the other mothers in her child's playgroup were too low-class for her taste. The solution? Send your nanny instead! Between that and the ads for $1,200 strollers I felt a little embarrassed to have it on my coffee table and quickly threw it in the recycling bin.

That distaste aside, from the looks of this cover, I might have to don a trench coat and big sunglasses so that I can buy this issue next time I'm at the bookstore. I love Liya Kebede and these beach photographs with her daughter are too sweet to resist.

Liya Kebede at Home

From InStyle Magazine, pics of her Upper East Side apartment. I love the way she incorporates tradition pieces of furniture in her modern space. I would have loved to see her closet!

Source: Luxx/TFS

Liya Kebede on CNN "Revealed"

She's such a class act. Every bit as intelligent as she is beautiful.