Liya Kebede will be the first woman of color to be on the cover of Vogue Paris in years. The model to grace cover before her was Rose Cordero back in 2010. Kebede will be on Vogue’s cover for the upcoming May issue. Kebede is no newbie to Vogue Paris; she was also on the cover for the May issue 12 years ago. That was when she first started modeling and that cover jump started her career. Kebede started modeling in Ethiopia when she was 14 and moved to Paris and then to New York. So, her on this cover is like coming full circle.
Print media has been pushing for more women of color on the covers of magazine. In January British Vogue had Jourdan Dunn pose for their cover, and she was the first woman of color on the magazine’s cover in 12 years. American Vogue has had the most diversity in 2014 on their covers. American Vogue had four covers with people of color out of the 15 covers put out all year, while the rest were white. It is a tiny dent, but it is a dent.
Earlier this year the Fashion Spot looked into 44 different major publications all over the world. Out of the 611 coves only 119 covers had diversity on the covers, while the rest where white models. This means that 19% of the covers featured models of color. The biggest offenders were Harper’s Bazaar U.S. and UK, Vogue UK, Vogue Netherlands, Vogue Paris, Vogue Ukraine, Vogue Russia, Teen Vogue, Numéro, LOVE and Porter. Hopefully, now these publications will realize they need more diversity on their covers. 2015 is only three months in and American Vogue has already had a cover with Selena Williams on it. This brings hopes for the rest of the year.
