Italian Vogue's Black Issue Breaks Fashion Barrier

Italian Vogue has broken one of the fashion world's taboos by featuring only black models in its July issue. The pictures by New-York based Steven Meisel, one of the most successful photographers in the industry, fill about 100 pages of the magazine, and are accompanied by features on black women in the arts and entertainment.

The absence of black models on the covers of fashion magazines has long been a complaint inside the industry. The justification frequently given is that such covers "do not sell".

Leading black figures among models, designers and agents claim that the business has grown increasingly discriminatory, with levels of exposure for black women among the lowest since the 1960s. Several big names have formed a protest group in New York to highlight the problem.

Italian Vogue's editor, Franca Sozzani, said her decision was influenced by the New York group, as well as by Barack Obama's success in the US presidential primaries.

Meisel, who worked with Madonna on her controversial coffee-table book, Sex, brought several of the black fashion world's big names aboard for the issue. He photographed Naomi Campbell, Iman, Tyra Banks, Liya Kebede, Jourdan Dunn, Alek Wek and Pat Cleveland, among others.

"I thought, it's ridiculous, this discrimination. It's so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race - every kind of prejudice," he told the New York Times. He blamed designers, magazine editors and advertisers for the decline in the numbers of black women in fashion shows. "I have asked my advertising clients so many times, 'Can we use a black girl?' They say no."

Among the black models on his roster was the full-figured Toccara Jones. Meisel argued that weight was also an issue in the fashion world.

Italian Vogue's all-black issue is unlikely to be emulated by its US sister magazine, however. As a gesture, American Vogue will this month run an article about the lack of black models.