^ Thank you! I have found it increasingly depressing and worrying to see an undercurrent of prejudice and antiquated social morals seeping through in a lot of comments on this forum in the last year, to be frank.
Fashion, and yes, US Vogue are sh*te at the moment, there's no way around facing that fact, but this has been coming for a long time as many historied institutions in this industry try to extend their lifelines by tapping into youth and chase trends that have no connection with fashion (and little desire to be associated with it) such as social media and the relentless feed of information/news.
Fashion is not sh*te because the powers that be have finally caught up with the 21st century and deemed it acceptable to give permission to black (and Asian etc.) models and creatives to access the same level of success as their white counterparts. That is simply the dumbest line of thinking I can conceive at this time.
Difference as a concept is at the forefront of fashion at the moment, and it may be being pushed too far in some cases, but again, let's not be naive here, it's being mistreated and exploited by people like Anna as a seemingly shiny mask for the lack of effort in the production of magazine issues and ready to wear collections. It's not the root of the issue, but it's very easy to scapegoat something like racial diversity when the unfortunate correlation of these two concepts occurs almost simultaneously.
Listen, Tyler did an awful job on this cover, but he is not representative of every other BAME photographer working in the industry. It was Anna's choice to use him to capture this moment, and she demonstrated that she made the wrong choice here. We don't have a black photographer on the level of Meisel, Klein or McDean, but not one of them has been given a chance to get to that level so far! We have to start somewhere however, and believe it or not, the likes of Mitchell being given 'plum' jobs like this will open the door for others and in time, hopefully (maybe I'm being overly idealistic) allow other, more talented individuals to come to the fore. Which is why I do still support what's slowly happening at the moment, even if I'm not inspired at all.
At the end of the day people from different cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities bring something new to the table and the fashion industry, like the film industry, was going to have to get on board sooner or later. It's a slow start and I think we do just have to persevere and welcome these opportunities in order to level out the playing field. Why should fashion be immune to the same expectations that exist elsewhere within the workforce at large? And why should members of this forum who are part of the BAME community be subject to outdated and corrosive lines of thought in this day and age?
[OK, I rambled a lot there and don't know if I made sense, but hey, rant over! This issue is pure b*llocks, but I like the idea of the main edit giving exposure to brands around America. As many others have said, the execution is just a shocker.]