Behold, American Vogue’s December 2024 digital cover. This became controversial as soon as it was released. First, some backstory on the cover. It features seven actual models (only one of whom is a nepo-baby): Angelina Kendall, Anok Yai, Vittoria Ceretti, Amelia Gray, Lulu Tenney, Loli Bahia and Devyn Garcia. A real who’s-who of the under-30 models and I think all of them qualify as Gen Z?
Vogue’s cover story is called “How Fashion Is Coming Down To Earth.” The cover models are all wearing various mass-market brands on the cover, brands like Gap, Toteme, Dôen, Levi’s and Polo Ralph Lauren. The thesis is that fashion is headed to mass-market brands, because people – especially young people – do not want to wear couture or excessively priced fashion in this new era. There’s also a focus on how many major designers are moving into established mass-market brands, like Claire Waight Keller moving from Givenchy to Uniqlo. Zac Posen is also creating a Gap line, and that’s especially highlighted in the Vogue piece. I enjoy these kinds of “trendspotting/where is fashion going” pieces but I think Vogue is missing some components of what awaits the fashion industry in the coming years.
Anyway, the controversy! Basically, Vogue could have highlighted the the style diversity within affordable, mass-market brands and really showcased the affordable looks in the best possible way. Instead, Vogue made the choice to make everyone looked washed out and same-y. All the models in jeans and white tops, placed in a grey box with a grey letterhead. This is the future of fashion? Dull, sexless models in a grey box, all wearing the same thing?? I can handle a lack of glamour if the magazine is giving us a striking or striped-down cover image. But this just looks like some AI sh-t.
Elaborated on this https://t.co/owX0mimPGc pic.twitter.com/8b0JNPYeTs
— Louis Pisano (@LouisPisano) December 12, 2024
Love that there are models on the covers. HATE the covers. pic.twitter.com/Rq7cp67x4A
— Linduh Evangelista (@marcuslmorris) December 11, 2024
Cover courtesy of Vogue.
Such sad, lithe, pouty babies. It’s giving Abercrombie and Fitch in the human trafficking days trying to find its way to a CK One ad via 1999 Beverly Hills High School yearbook.
Hahahahaha. Holy crap did you nail the description JUSTJJ.
It looks like a Teen Vogue cover and very summertime.
Nailed it. And if you told me that none of these women were real people but generated by AI, I would buy that 100%. With this many people, you can feature their faces or what they are wearing but not both, and they tried to do too much here. And the dead stare is not a look that very many people can pull off, certainly no one from this group.
Terrible cover, which is on Vogue, and yet y’all pour your scorn towards the
models themselves and not the folks who selected them, posed them, chose the pictures…. Telling.
Perfect description!
Nothing about this cover screams iconic.
Bland.
I get the point they’re trying to make but I snortled when I looked at the cover and the title. “Fashion Gets Real” while showing unrealistic expectations of beauty.
What do you find unrealistic about these seven women?
Is that a joke? They are all at least 5’10” rail thin, perfect features, etc… Jesus are we back to heroin chic? Because I grew up in the 90s and ED was everywhere. I starved for decades to be ultra skinny.
And to add to Colleen’s excellent comment: to a one they all have straightened hair…a status that is a stereotype for “the right way to look”
What Colleen said. We’ve been having this conversation since Kate Moss.
True, a person can’t change their height but their features shouldn’t be classified as unrealistic because this is what these young women look like. Granted there’s an entire glam squad behind the scenes but that’s what Vogue is about. As to 90s heroin chic, this is nowhere near that messed up grungy phase. All these models look clean. By the way, check out Kate Moss’ recent Zara campaign.
“but their features shouldn’t be classified as unrealistic because this is what these young women look like”
But we do this all the time? Models literally define the unrealistic beauty standard– the point being that most of us aren’t 5’11’, 108 lbs with perfect hair and skin. There have been ad campaigns for the past 5 years or more challenging the standard beauty prototype specifically because we all got tired of staring at women who don’t look like the vast majority of us. It’s tiresome and predictable and with the advent of IG and it’s influencers, it’s getting progressively worse.
Models literally define the unrealistic beauty standard– the point being that most of us aren’t 5’11’, 108 lbs with perfect hair and skin. <<
I never understood being critical of attractive people posing for pictures to sell merchandise. The woman described above with the perfect hair and skin, what should she do, stay home? You're expressing a resentment that is rooted in your own insecurities. I get that these women may not look like most people but that's why they're models. Ballerinas represent a very specific body type, basketball players have above average height, and so on. Not every person can do or be everything.
Alwyn — because these are unrealistic beauty types that 90% of women will never achieve. The media pummels it into young women’s heads that these unattainable beauty standards are the only ones with value. My sister, who had a naturally heavy build but was beautiful, died of eating disorders because she wanted to be perfect and thin. Let that sink in…
I suggest that “unrealistic” and “unattainable” be stricken from any serious discussion about models because these words negate the humanity of women who fit the aesthetic du jour and reduce them to figurative and literal poster children of all that is wrong. They are not the enemy and as long as young girls continue to be told they’ll never look like the model on Vogue because her look is unrealistic, at least one of those young girls is going to try her best to achieve that look, sometimes with fatal results.
We literally cannot even see the fashion. Just sad looking models in prairie tops.
Absolutely no one is smizing here. Bored.
That must be it. They’re all just giving…nothing.
Every one of these girls is giving “hottest cashier at Dillard’s.”
For sure, food court chic. (Not that they actually eat food/have seen food in the past two years) but as someone who worked in retail and waited tables in college, this description is quite accurate
I hate that come hither look or what ever it’s called. Looks ridiculous.
The representation still sucks.
Only one dark-skinned model with non Euro features? (Sorry, I don’t know her name, I don’t know who any of the models on the cover are, despite reading their names in the article)
How “real” is that?
When will Asian, Latino, indigenous, Afro-Latina women get a chance to model?
And don’t tell me that Gisele, the highest paid model ever, is Latino. Yes, I know she is Brazilian, but her DNA shows she is 100% Euro, like many of the famous Brazilian models of the 90s and 2000s. I’m not knocking her beauty or her accomplishment. But she is tall, thin, with the typically adored Euro face.
But heading into 2025 we should be seeing REAL diversity. Where is it?
Vogue acts their doing something new & exciting. This is boring.
The jeans & white tops are cute, I’ll give them that.
“Only one dark-skinned model with non Euro features? (Sorry, I don’t know her name,”
It’s Anok Yai.
And I agree that there should have been a bigger variety of ethnicities on the cover. This is a major fail.
Thank you!
Anok is stunning!
Apparently one of the models on the cover is a plus-size model, but you can’t tell because they made sure to hide her body.
See, that kind of stuff pisses me off.
It isn’t 1998 anymore, Vogue.
Wake up!
“Plus size” in modeling is size 4-6. get real
All I see is foreheads.
😂👏🏾
Vogue US has been getting it wrong for a long time now. Anna isn’t cutting it.
Countdown to when she’s gonna have Melanie Wife Number 3 on the cover.
I agree. I finally just cancelled my subscription to the print edition after a decade of disappointment. I remember when the fashion pages were aspirational and interesting, and the articles were informative and intriguing. I wish I had stashed away a few borrowed issues from the Vreeland and Mirabella eras.
😁
This cover is depressing AF. I see a million suburban mom influencers on instagram who make Target and Old Navy clothes look CUTE. Everything is well-lit, smiley, accessorized, and stylish.
If it can be done in suburban Dallas, it can be done in Vogue.
I vote both: really bad and boring.
” I think Vogue is missing some components of what awaits the fashion industry in the coming years.” I wish you would go into more detail about this statement.
What is fashions obsession with sameness when diversity is so much more interesting? It’s gross and so passé but I guess it tracks in this peak toxic male perspective culture we are currently in. The ideal woman for men these days seems to be a compliant, non-threatening, vacant doe-eyed sex doll, which this cover NAILS.
(Except for Anok Yai, who’s face is insanely beautiful even with this heavy under eye liner that flatters no one)
I agree with your point about it being passé and boring. But I’m confused about how the “ideal woman for men these days seems to be a compliant, non-threatening, vacant doe-eyed sex doll.” THESE DAYS? It’s
been the case. I can point to some worsening with tiktok, but as much as I dislike this cover none of these models have that overly fillered/plastic surgery look.
Also – stop referring to real life women as sex dolls. It’s absolutely disgusting and misogynist.
>compliant, non-threatening, vacant doe-eyed sex doll<
So, how would you have styled the cover to represent women as you see them? And I mean women for being women, not as you posit, ideal women for men.
Well, for starters, i wouldn’t have styled them all with the same boob-length straightened, but with a slight wave, no bangs, darkish hair.
The Barbie Colorforms I had as a kid gave me more diverse options than that in color, hair texture, length and style.
Straight parts mixed with side parts with no other variation does not = diverse or interesting. That’s just dull conformity.
So many dead eyes. Like someone murdered fashion.
What’s the point of having designers move to mass market if this is the result?
Can’t it be both??
It truly does look like an AI cover. They’re all pretty much indistinguishable, even the POC woman. Wait, no, not her. She doesn’t seem to have dead eyes like the others do.
It’s a bad cover, but don’t erase the identities of the other WOC on this cover.
And to be clear I do think it’s super important to talk about the colorism at play here, as a darker skinned WOC myself. But, for example, Loli Bahia being white passing doesn’t not make her a WOC.
Grim. They look pushed into a corner and facing a firing squad. No joy at all. Is this forecasting the demise of couture or what?
DiCaprio’s ability to make the most basic (young) women happen should be studied. I had never heard about Vittoria Ceretti before and now she’s literally everywhere. It’s almost fascinating.
He didn’t make her happen. She was one of the bigger models in fashion before they met. Mainstream famous? No. But most fashion models – aka not nepo babies or influencers – simply aren’t.
If you follow fashion, and models in particular, you would’ve heard of Vittoria Ceretti. She has a very successful career outside of Leo. And to be clear, dating Leo does not raise the profile of models in the modeling world. They may appear on a few entertainment sites but no runway show has ever featured ” Leo’s girlfriend” as a marketing point.
This is Leo’s most successful girlfriend since Giselle. She has been working since her teens and is the closest thing to a supermodel these days.
So, so bad.
Both.
The models have a variety of looks but not a very diverse group. It’s the clothing that looks boring to me. Summer clothes from any decade from the 70’s on.
Who’s the nepo baby?
Got it it’s Amelia Grey