Vogue’s editor has stood by her publication’s much-criticised cover of US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, saying the photoshoot celebrated “the important moment this is for America’s history”.
The cover – which was revealed earlier this week – angered many, after it featured Harris dressed in an informal outfit including jeans and a pair of Converse trainers.
It was also slammed for poor lighting and labelled by one social media user as a “washed out mess of a cover”.
It speaks volumes when someone’s Wikipedia photo is better than the vogue cover photo. pic.twitter.com/QHnALT6Bzm
— laura (she/her) 🥨 (@lauratellsjokes) January 10, 2021
Vogue US editor Anna Wintour – who originally described the image as “joyful”, “casual” and “accessible” – has released a statement on the saga.
“Obviously we have heard and understood the reaction to the print cover and I just want to reiterate that it was absolutely not our intention to, in any way, diminish the importance of the vice president-elect’s incredible victory,” Wintour said.
Wintour also told the New York Times that she took full responsibility for “publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant”.
She also responded to claims that Vogue had gone against Harris’s request for the more formal image to be used as the cover.
“There was no formal agreement about what the choice of the cover would be,” Wintour said. “And when the two images arrived at Vogue, all of us felt very, very strongly that the less formal portrait of the vice-president-elect really reflected the moment that we were living in.”
It is not the first time Wintour has been forced to defend a controversial Vogue cover.
Last year – in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protest – Vogue was slammed for its photography of US Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. The images were (again) labelled poorly lit and the publication came under fire for failing to hire a black photographer to shoot the athlete.
