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IT’S 2020 AND THE FASHION INDUSTRY STILL LACKS DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
AUGUST 1974 VOGUE COVER FEATURING BEVERLY JOHNSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANCESCO SCAVULLO
It has been 46 years since Beverly Johnson made her appearance as the first Black woman on the cover of Vogue in August 1974, and the fashion industry has certainly changed and progressed in terms of inclusion throughout the years. However, despite the fact that by the year 1975 all of the major mainstream magazines had featured a woman of color on their covers and it slowly became a standard, the fight against racism, ableism and lack of diversity within the world of fashion is still not over.
After that Vogue cover premiere, Beverly Johnsons career skyrocketed, as she was desired in hundreds of other photoshoots, including two more Vogue covers, and that triggered other publishers to include women of color in their magazines. Many would see that as a breaking point of progress and consider the issue of magazines lacking representation of people of color solved, but in order to truly understand, one must dig deeper and look behind the scenes. Although Beverly was as desirable as white models, maybe even more at the time, she was paid only a fraction of her Caucasian colleagues’ salary, and apart from that her and other Black models were often kept from requesting a Black photographer, stylist or a make-up artist. That sadly remained unchanged for many following years, as the first ever Vogue cover shot by a Black photographer appeared only in 2018, when Beyoncé advocated Tyler Mitchell to shoot her September cover. This only shows how hypocritical the industry can be, as it profits from exploiting the Black culture immensely, but rarely gives the real people who come from it any credit and representation. There has also been a countless number of cases where whole collections had been inspired by African or Asian cultures, however the models presenting the clothes were European.
