Culture

Vogue Is Getting Slammed For Its “Disrespectful” And “White Washed” Cover Of Kamala Harris

"Is it racism or simply misogyny that made you break your promise and use the worse photo of strikingly beautiful Kamala Harris? We all see you."

by Michelle Rennex  11 January 2021
Kamala Harris Vogue Cover

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Today Vogue officially announced that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was the fashion magazine’s February cover star.

However, the questionable cover photo had already circulated online a day prior, and caused quite a stir with many thinking the image had to be fake because it was that bad.

On the final print cover, which looks like a lighting test shot or school photography project, Harris is shown in a mismatched blazer and black jean combo paired with her signature black Converse, as she stands in the “You Know I Had To Do It To ‘Em” pose.

Her prom-gone-wrong backdrop isn’t that much better either, with a pink cloth messily draped over green wall as a nod to the colours of the Vice President-elect’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Likely aware of all the criticism the original cover was facing, earlier today Vogue decided to tweet out their cover story with a second, more appropriate digital cover that featured Harris in a powder blue suit — but the damage had already been done.

Despite Vogue being a literal fashion magazine, the decision to put the first Black woman elected as vice president in what is effectively jeans and sneakers is pretty sad — especially because Harris’ team allege this wasn’t the cover they had settled on.

According to reporter Yashar Ali, Kamala Harris and her team had expected the powder blue suit image to be the print cover as it was the image they had all mutually agreed upon.

“In the cover that they expected, Vice President-elect Harris was wearing a powder blue suit,” Ali shared. “That was the cover that the Vice President-elect’s team and the Vogue team, including Anna Wintour, mutually agreed upon… which is the standard for fashion magazines.”

Sadly as the issue had already gone to print, the jean and sneaker cover would be the only hard-copy version for sale. And while the decision to make the first woman — and first woman of colour — elected as Vice President a cover star is well-deserved, the styling choices were called out online for being “unflattering”, “disrespectful” and “low-effort”.

Plus, the decision to swap the covers without consulting Kamala Harris or her team has even been described as racist, as it’s likely not something a white cover star would have to face.

But fashion aside for a moment, Vogue has also been accused of white washing the Vice President-elect due the poor lighting that makes Harris look much fairer than she is, highlighting a recurring diversity issue with the magazine.

In 2020, Anna Wintour, Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief shared an internal apology with staff after Bon Appétit was exposed for significant pay inequity between white and POC workers. In the note, Wintour took “full responsibility” for publishing images and stories that have been “hurtful and intolerant”, and acknowledged that Vogue had not done enough to elevate Black creatives.

So for this shoot, Wintour actually employed Tyler Mitchell, the 26-year-old creative who became the magazine’s first Black photographer when he shot Beyoncé for Vogue back in 2018.

However, when the Vice President’s story went live, Mitchell also only chose to post the digital cover to his social media while sharing the story, proving that someone else in the team had clearly made the decision to go with the less-flattering image for print.

Speaking to the New York Post, Vogue has tried to defuse the situation by explaining that Harris chose to use her own team for styling, hair and makeup.

A source from the shoot also claims that “both looks were selected by the Vice President-elect and her team”, with the final decision of which image would feature as the cover left to Vogue to decide. Still, that means the team at Vogue made the active choice to go with a poorly-lit image of Kamala Harris in Chucks and skinny jeans instead of a the powerful powder blue suit.

But hey, at least Melania Trump never got her First Lady cover, right?

You can read the Vice President-Elect’s Vogue cover story here.