The good news: Vogue Italia used another black model in an editorials.
The bad news: She's just an unnamed prop in a decadent multipage editorial featuring white model Anja Rubik.
This is yet another example of how people of color can occupy the same space as white subject but not the same status. When I look at this photo, all I see is the maid. In contrast, all she sees is her employer, eagerly waiting for the next order. It's almost as if the photographer (Miles Aldridge) decided to flip the script on the more common 'white woman in Africa' imagery and instead drop a brown person into a white person's world. Unfortunately, in this case, the brown woman is still just window dressing.
I would go on about this but I think I'd just be repeating myself and to be honest, the ladies over at Threadbared said much more succinctly in fantastic post titled "Background Color" that appeared on their blog last year.
Perhaps a better title for this spread would have been "The Vulgarities of Fashion."
Source (and remainder of photos) here.
Perhaps a better title for this spread would have been "The Vulgarities of Fashion."
Source (and remainder of photos) here.