Will There Ever Be an African Vogue?
by guest contributor Brigitte, originally published at Make Fetch Happen
Do you remember when Vogue India hit the stands and Australian model Gemma Ward was front and center flanked by two presumably Indian models in what I like to call “the coveted Beyonce spot?” All I could do was laugh at how predictable that move was on the editors part.
In the months since that launch last year, Vogue India has featured a dazzling array of Bollywood actresses and models on the cover. It’s as if to say, “yeah, we thought the cover on that premiere issue was lame too but we fully intend to make up for it!”
Anytime I think about that launch I wonder if an African country will ever get its own Vogue. Maybe a Vogue Nigeria or a South African Vogue.
I’ve debated back and forth on message boards about who would be chosen for the imaginary inagural cover. Legendary Iman? Alek Wek? Liya? Oluchi? Gemma in a safari hat?
I read an article in The Times last week about Oluchi in which she was quoted as saying that top magazines in South Africa (like Glamour and GQ) refuse to put blacks on their covers. This in a country that is 79% black.
She said:
“As a Nigerian and an African I have done so much in my career to represent everything African in Western countries. There is a diverse group of people in South Africa, be it black, white, Asian. …If you pick up Vogue India everything about it, from the first page to the last, is very Indian…I would like to see that in South Africa. They [magazines] need to embrace diversity and show more love …It doesn’t give me joy to pick up a copy of South African GQ and feel like I’m reading American GQ.”
Damn.
This saddens me. I recall seeing the cover of South African ELLE once with a dark skinned woman on the cover and for months I tried to find an issue at various newsstands only to come up empty. I was dying to know if the cover I saw was an anomoly. So far, I’m not willing to pony up the $90 or so for a subscription to find out.
Back to my magazine fantasy…I picture two covers. The first one featuring a mix of models from all over the continent with Iman or Liya Kebede, Alek Wek or Ajuma to show the very different types of African beauty. My second thought has editors mixing it up a bit more with the likes of a Jourdan Dunn, Emanuela dePaula, Chanel Iman, Chrystelle Saint-Louis Augustin, or Damaris Lewis to illustrate how there isn’t a corner of the world that hasn’t been touched by this so called dark continent’s beauty and influence.
Seriously, I could ponder this for hours. I am so much more satisfied by made up magazines than by their real conterparts. Maybe there’s an editor out there dreaming of this launch too, and of Gemma Ward posing on an elephant for the cover.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
ceecee wrote:
South Africa is worse than the U.S when it comes to race relations and sadly, black people are bottom of the totem pole.
One magazine already out there that I think is comparable to a “Vogue Africa” is True Love West Africa.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 7:44 am ¶
Callith wrote:
ceecee, this may or may not be true. I would like to think that we in South Africa have made much progress.
AA/BEE has achieved a tremendous deal for all people of colour in South Africa, and will do so for many more years.
Our magazines, while not entirely representative of the South African demographic, are slowly changing.
There is another problem we face: inflated circulation figures, which resulted in a huge scandal last year. A couple of titles bombed, among them was True Love Babe, a magazine aimed at Black Girls.
So for a magazine to work, we first need buyers. And I’d even risk my neck and say that the average black youngster may not have enough money to buy a magazine.
Anyway. Back to the point about a South African, or African Vogue.
A friend who is in the industry, claimed hearing something about that possibility. This was late last year. So far, nothing.
I can see it happening. We have very talented people, and rich publishing houses. I don’t know what the situation in West Africa is like.
There are a couple of ladies who would make great editors, as they have many years of experience between them.
But I wouldn’t really want an international model on the inaugural cover. I would want a home-grown girl/lady to grace that cover. It’d make all of Africa proud.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 8:48 am ¶
squidfly wrote:
stop being sad and passive get angry and active!!!
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 9:15 am ¶
Callith wrote:
I agree with Squidfly. We should become fashion editors and magazine editors and start making the decisions.
Start our own magazines and make sure they do not fold before their first issue. This happened to the SA version of Ebene.
It’s possible, we just need to get active.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 9:56 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
gotta say the comments section is disgusting http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=724179
i mean, a lot of the worst comments have gone, but comments about black people being animals who rape their children are still there for some nasty reason. reading a discussion yesterday about ’subtle’ racism (spiff on the bus etc) now seems like a much smaller issue considering the comments on this site.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 10:13 am ¶
Cynthia wrote:
^^^and get the funding Callith.
Magazines are hideously expensive to produce. That’s why I went online and use volunteer writers. Making money from it is another story though.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 10:16 am ¶
islandgirl550 wrote:
I would love, love, love more fashion content direct from Africa. Callith, could you suggest a few South African magazines I might be able to read?
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 10:18 am ¶
South African Beauty wrote:
Why do we need a Vogue South Africa. . . so they can just put white south africans on it and like the normal vogue have a woman of colour grace its pages once in a full moon, just for show ! ?
“If you pick up Vogue India everything about it, from the first page to the last, is very Indian ”
.. . . not so much. That magazine like basically all other Indian magazines out right now just try to be westeren. The models are all whiter than the average indian and dark-skinned indian models rarely grace the pages. If they are dark-skinned they put so much makeup on them that they loook whiter . They advertise whitening cream with no shame .
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 10:39 am ¶
Black Canseco wrote:
How can you be surprised by this? As progressive as the US purports to be it’s only within the last 10 or 15 years that you’ve seen significant progress in ethnic models in mainstream mags. it’s not like we’ve been doing this since 1776 or anything.
South Africa may be 79% black, but 80% of the land, 90% of the banks, media etc are still owned by/run by whites.
it’s not unsimilar to the makeup of our media/entertainment system in the states.
As much as you may or may not be catering to black consumers, fact is the prism starts with who owns the outlets and how do they see their consumers and audiences.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 11:01 am ¶
Tarah Sweeney wrote:
Hi, islandgirl550
I’m ashamed to say that there aren’t many proudly South African English magazines. The Afrikaans market is exploding (well, almost), but I’m not sure if you can understand Afrikaans.
Fairlady is a staple, but it is still very white. It’s one of the few truly South African (or as far as I know) magazines.
Cynthia, you’re so right. This is one of the reasons why Miss Ebene folded. They worked so very hard, for nothing.
South African Beauty, we don’t need a SA Vogue as much as we don’t need a SA Glamour or Cosmo or Elle or Femina.
But I’d love one, I’ll be honest. Honestly, I can’t afford Vogue at over R100. It’s just too much. But I’m sure they’d be able to produce a local version that is as decadent for R40 or so. *Crosses fingers*
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 11:20 am ¶
LH wrote:
Don’t believe we’ll be seeing a Vogue Africa and am saddened that there’s a ‘need’ for one.
Beauty is universal but to look at the covers of magazines you’d never know as much.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 2:54 pm ¶
ceecee wrote:
@ South African Beauty my point exactly!
There are already quite a few mainstream fashion magazines in S.A that are lily white and S.A is a pretty diverse country…Elle, Glamour, True Love to name a few.
The notion that starting a Vogue in S.A will automatically have women of color on the majority of the covers is highly unlikely….which is what I was trying to say in my first comment about S.A’s race relations being just as bad as the U.S.
There are some fashion magazines online that cater to African women that I’m aware of MIMI Magazine being one of them and a new one I came upon recently Fashion Africa (I don’t think it’s S.A)
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 3:10 pm ¶
JBaker wrote:
Honestly, at this point-im afraid for an African Vogue to appear right now. I was a big fan of the idea of Vogue India up until the launch. Besides it not featuring any Indian models in the traditional editorials, it has really maligned Desi women to be very “secondary” in their approach to beauty and fashion sense….all of the basis of style tend to be modeled after the white celebrity. But since African and India women are “exotic” that is the saving grace. Vogue’s narrow’s ideas of what a beauty magazine just don’t fit within the beautiful spectrum of Indian AND African women, I guess im afraid of another mistake! Check out the post “brown paper mag” on our site for our take on their advertisements.
Posted 20 Mar 2008 at 6:33 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
I clicked on the Oluchi link — big mistake… what nasty pieces of work showed up to comment there! Looking at their reactions, you’d think she’d ordered the magazine to be banned and the editor drawn and quartered in the streets, as opposed to merely suggesting that a magazine in a country in sub-Saharan Africa with a 79% black population should have an African cover girl every now and then. No wonder there are so few black models, if many big names in African print media won’t even support them. *shakes head*
Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 10:15 pm ¶
ann wrote:
I agree with South African Beauty. DO we need a Vogue Africa? A darkened version of impossible fashion abstractions possibly edited by someone outside of the diverse fashion realm of Africa? Who is we? What audience truly seeks this out? What about the magazines that already exist? Do we recognize them as established, professional-grade international spaces for exchange of ideas and truly African features?
“We” should question our need/want for a fashion expression from Africa. We Africans are already producing quality fashion statements, exchanging on our own terms and not those of a culture that ignores us or blesses us with patronizing pats when it wants.
Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 2:15 pm ¶
Brigitte wrote:
“I clicked on the Oluchi link — big mistake… what nasty pieces of work showed up to comment there!”
The comments on that site were so nasty that I almost didn’t include the link in my post.
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 4:52 pm ¶
Orville wrote:
South Africa has a long way to go I agree about this. Yes apartheid is over but the institutionalized racism is very rampant in South Africa. Its going to take more time for change I mean real change to occur.
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 6:45 pm ¶
Afro-America Writer wrote:
It is sad but I can truly say I’m not surprised about the top magazines in South Africa. Even years after apartheid, the racial divide is still strong; case in point the controversy last month with South Africa college students.
I’ve traveled a number of times to the continent and yes, the “white” ideals sometimes seem prevalent even though most of their black models are the ones who get rave success - how ironic is that?
Posted 26 Mar 2008 at 8:39 am ¶