Vanity Fair September 2020 : Breonna Taylor by Amy Sherald

[YohjiAddict]

^It looks as flat as anything you can draw on an IPad, forgive mi ignorance. In any case, it just makes it worse.

 

[Benn98]

Content-wise, Vanity Fair is a shadow of its former self, and I mean mostly in terms of content. Magazines like Tatler, UK Wired, The Atlantic, UK & US GQ, and sometimes Town & Country have stolen their thunder with both entertaining and serious long reads that are well-researched and well-written. Vanity Fair is far too serious right now. Even when they tackle something as frivolous as Tik Tokers they write it with the same serious tone they reserve for say a politician or activist.

 

[JohannesL]

Does it mean that Vanity Fair won’t campaign for Kamala Harris in the future? Otherwise, it’s very distasteful to celebrate Breonna Taylor while ignoring top cop Kamala Harris's history with the police.

 

[tigerrouge]

Content-wise, Vanity Fair is a shadow of its former self

I like how we get entirely new faces on the cover - but beyond the front page, it's rubbish. There's no bite. So far, the entire magazine feels like a writing exercise from someone who's too afraid to offend anyone, and just follows the consensus.

Also, people who work in the entertainment industry are generally still swimming in shark-infested waters, and some of the people featured recently in the magazine will turn out to be the sharks. The colour of your skin doesn't stop you from being a terrible employer, your orientation doesn't mean you're not someone who sexually harasses the people around you.

It used to be hard to speak out against people like Weinstein because they weren't believed and it was the end of their career, now it's hard to speak out about others, because they'll be called racists or bigots, and they'll be "cancelled".

How this magazine deals with that when it happens... I was about to say "it will be interesting" but it won't be.

 

[FashionMuseDior]

Ultimately, I hope this brings awareness towards police brutality and BLM, and I hope the content is good.

 

[lucy92]

I could be interpreting it incorrectly, but Amy Sherald said she made the painting for Breonna’s family. I don’t know if she meant the painting Itself is actually gifted to them, but if so that would be a beautiful gesture.

Interesting, so do you reckon the VF just licensed the image of painting for a cheap amount? That could mean we are in for these painting covers in the future as they could be much cheaper to produce than a shoot.

 

[Benn98]

Interesting, so do you reckon the VF just licensed the image of painting for a cheap amount? That could mean we are in for these painting covers in the future as they could be much cheaper to produce than a shoot.

It was definitely commissioned by VF, so they own it. I imagine she meant that it's a gift for Breonna's family in a sense 'that the cover/painting will keep her spirit alive'.
There's already quite a bit of buyer interest in the Hockney cover for British Vogue, and that one will be auctioned off with proceeds going to COVID charities. It would be shameful for VF to flip this artwork for personal gain 10, 20 or even 50 years down the line.

Also, the bolded part made me cringe but it's just your usual artist talk.....

AMY SHERALD ON MAKING BREONNA TAYLOR’S PORTRAIT

The artist, who painted Michelle Obama, took care to draw on details from Taylor’s life.

BY MILES POPE

For more than 20 years, Amy Sherald has been putting the narratives of Black families and Black people to canvas. In 2016, she became the first woman and first African American to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which led to her painting Michelle Obama for the National Portrait Gallery in 2018. That oil-on-linen portrait was her first commissioned work—until Breonna Taylor.

Taylor is an “American girl, she is a sister, a daughter, and a hard worker. Those are the kinds of people that I am drawn towards,” says Sherald, who is immunosuppressed and has been unable to participate in protests. She calls this portrait a contribution to the “moment and to activism—producing this image keeps Breonna alive forever.”

Sherald’s process typically begins with taking a picture of her subject. Painting Taylor, a person she had never met, who would never be able to sit for her, presented a unique challenge. Sherald took extraordinary care in reimagining Taylor, inflecting her portrait with symbols of the 26-year-old’s life. Sherald found a young woman with similar physical attributes, studied Taylor’s hairstyles and fashion choices, and drew inspiration from things she learned about the young woman—that she had been a frontline worker in the battle against COVID-19; that her boyfriend had been about to propose marriage; that she was self-possessed, brave, loving, loved.


“She sees you seeing her. The hand on the hip is not passive, her gaze is not passive. She looks strong!” says Sherald. “I wanted this image to stand as a piece of inspiration to keep fighting for justice for her. When I look at the dress, it kind of reminds me of Lady Justice.”

Jasmine Elder of JIBRI, an Atlanta-based fashion designer, created a crepe dress specifically for the cover. “When thinking about what she was going to wear, I wanted Breonna to like it,” says Sherald. “I wanted her family to look and say, I can see my daughter and sister in this.” A friend sent Sherald an image of actress Danielle Brooks wearing an Elder piece, and Sherald found Elder on Shoppe Black, a digital platform curated by husband and wife Tony O. Lawson and Shantrelle P. Lewis that showcases Black businesses. During the painting process, Sherald added movement to the dress, and a slit—“I thought, What would I want if I were 26.”

As for the hues, “painting someone posthumously, I wanted it to feel ethereal but grounded at the same time,” Sherald says. She tried a rainbow of options, yellows and reds and pinks, but none felt quite right, until she invoked the portrait itself. “ ‘Breonna, what color do you want this dress to be? Please, tell me what color you want this dress to be,’ ” Sherald says she mused. Then she hit on blue, a shade that echoes Taylor’s March birthstone, the aquamarine. “The color that I chose almost had a resplendence to it. The monochromatic color allows you to really focus on her face. The whole painting really becomes about her.”

There are other painstaking, heartbreaking details: the gold cross on a chain necklace; the engagement ring Taylor would never get to wear, on her left hand (photographed by LaToya Ruby Frazier). This is Sherald’s nod to Taylor’s future and how her life was taken from her. “I made this portrait for her family,” says Sherald. “I mean, of course I made it for Vanity Fair, but the whole time I was thinking about her family.”

Vanity Fair

 

[tigerrouge]

It would be shameful for VF to flip this artwork for personal gain 10, 20 or even 50 years down the line.

Vanity Fair used to run articles about wheeling and dealing in the art world... now their content becomes part of it.

 

[Benn98]

Vanity Fair used to run articles about wheeling and dealing in the art world... now their content becomes part of it.

The irony of course is that they represent a completely new set of values, as evidenced by Radhika's interview with CNN posted in the Business of Magazines thread (thanks MMA!). It is interesting to note that Brian Stelter, good journalist that he is, pressed her on navigating the new social climate with the magazine's elitist reputation. A reputation that played a huge part in that Beto guy's failed presidential campaign. But she didn't acknowledge it explicitly. It's almost as if to admit that her magazine is elitist at the core (or regarded as such) is a negative that appears to be such a dirty phrase.

I mean, the magazine itself clearly alludes to its elitist aura, or at the very least, access. Taken from the Vanity Fair website:

According to data from Zignal Labs, an intelligence firm in San Francisco, response to the May 13 (Beto's) Vanity Fair (cover) story generated roughly 21,000 tweets from verified “blue checkmark” users on Twitter, a momentous spike in elite social traffic. (For comparison, Buttigieg, the current media darling in the field, peaked at 10,500 verified tweets at the height of his media buzz in mid-April.) On Twitter, a media narrative about O’Rourke ossified overnight: Entitled White Dude Runs for President.

 

[Benn98]

Vanity Fair September 2020



You Said Hope

Photographer: Renell Medrano, Ruth Ossai, Kennedi Carter, Wulf Bradley, Djeneba Aduayom, Erik Carter, Lynsey Weatherspoon, Dana Scruggs, Shan Wallace, Bruce Bennett, Miranda Barnes, Phylicia J.L. Munn, Levi Walton, Myles Loftin, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Sophia Wilson, Braylen Dion, Paul Octavious, Lawrence Agyei
Stylist: Jason Bolden
Hair: Brenda Ford, Dr. Kari Williams,
Makeup: Terrill Anthony, Adam Burrell, Crystal Tran, Emily Cheng
Cast: Yara Shahidi, John Boyega, Ihan Omar with Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley & Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Patrice Cullors, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, Isabel Wilkerson, Billy Porter, Sherrilyn Ifill, Janai Nelson, Black Thought, Noname, Nikole Hannah Jones, Colson Whitehead, Ava Duvernay, El-P and Killer Mike , Damon Williams, Indya Moore












Vanity Fair Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

Vanity Fair September 2020

Kindred Spirit

Photographer: Ruth Ossai
Set Designer: Ryan Connoly
Stylist: Ola Ebiti
Hair: Stefan Bertin
Makeup: Rebekah Lidstone
Cast: Letitia Wright





Vanity Fair Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

Vanity Fair September 2020

Photographer: Quil Lemons
Set Designer: Daniel Horowitz
Stylist: Zerina Akers
Hair: Tinisha Meeks
Makeup: Christina Cassell
Cast: ChloexHalle



Vanity Fair Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

For the UK edition only. Francesca Hayward looks stunning! Glad it's not another cliche dance editorial.

Vanity Fair September 2020

On Jewellery supplement



Living in the Movement

Photographer: Liz Collins
Stylist: Michelle Duguid
Hair: Samantha Hillerby
Makeup: Zoe Taylor
Cast: Francesca Hayward






Vanity Fair Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

Vanity Fair September 2020

Femme and Fortune

Photographer: Jonas Bresnan
Stylist: Chloe Dugast
Hair & Makeup: Mehdi R'Gubia
Cast: Clémence Poésy




Vanity Fair Digital Edition

 

[axiomatic]

Not fashion related obviously, but this essay is terrific and a credit to VF

On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic

 

[JPineapple]

Do you remember when Glamour started to print their issues in the cheapest paper ever and then become digital? Well Vanity Fair is the next. Save this post.

I received my copy today and the quality of the paper is lower than the latest issue I bought (December 2019), even the cover got a damage because of a little drop of sweat.

 

[KoV]

Do you remember when Glamour started to print their issues in the cheapest paper ever and then become digital? Well Vanity Fair is the next. Save this post.

I received my copy today and the quality of the paper is lower than the latest issue I bought (December 2019), even the cover got a damage because of a little drop of sweat.

.

Par for the course when it comes to Condé Nast titles these days. GQ, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, and Vogue Paper quality is awful. Architectural Digest hasn’t succumbed... yet!

 

[MyNameIs]

Brave, stunning, etc. /s