Kamala Harris will appear on the cover of the February issue of Vogue.
Kamala Harris will appear on the cover of Vogue’s February issue, but when the magazine tweeted photos of the cover recently, they instantly sparked a controversy. Vogue published two images of the elected vice president of the United States. One shows Kamala Harris, 56, in her Converse sneakers, standing in front of a pink and green curtain. The other shows her in a light blue suit, her arms crossed against a gold background.
Elected vice president @KamalaHarris is our cover star for February!
Making history was the first step. Now Harris has an even more monumental task: to help heal a fractured America and lift it out of crisis. Read the full profile: https://t.co/W5BQPTH7AUpic.twitter.com/OCFvVqTlOk
– Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) January 10, 2021
The photos, especially the first one, faced backlash from social media users who accused Vogue of “whitewashing” and failing to meet its normally high standard for photos.
“What a mess,” wrote Wajahat Ali, a contributor to the New York Times. “Anna Wintour really shouldn’t have black friends and colleagues. I’ll take VP Kamala Harris photos for free using my Samsung and I’m 100% sure it will turn out better than this Vogue cover.”
“Kamala Harris has skin as fair as women of color and Vogue still screwed up her lighting. WTF, is this mess washed out of a cover?” asked another Twitter user.
“The image itself is not terrible as an image. It is way, way below Vogue’s standards. They didn’t think about it. As if the assignment was done on the morning it was supposed to,” tweeted LGBTQ activist Charlotte Clymer.
Editing is not up to par either. I can’t tell if the skin lightening issue is due to the shot or the post, but the HSL values weren’t adjusted correctly for her skin tone during edits. Every Vogue photo editor should know the basics of editing photos of people of color.
– Eliza (@ghosts_hmu) January 10, 2021
Both photos were taken by photographer Tyler Mitchell, 26.
A source familiar with the photoshoot told CBS News that the image of Kamala Harris in the blue suit was the one that both parties had agreed would appear on the cover. “Harris and Vogue advisers understood that the blue / gold background suit would be the cover photo. Without telling Harris’s team, Vogue changed it to the pink / green photo that the VP-elect team disagreed with.” . the source said.
Another source said that the pink curtain image was supposed to have been used within the magazine, and that Kamala Harris’s team was “shocked” when the cover was published.
However, a Vogue source denied this to the New York Post. “Both styles were selected by the vice president-elect and her team,” the source said, adding that Ms. Harris herself chose the green and pink background because those were the colors of her college sorority.
“Vogue selected the image for the printed cover that we felt captured her personality and authenticity,” said another Vogue source. “Obviously, we love both images and are celebrating both covers digitally.”
Kamala Harris’ niece Meena Harris also shared an excerpt from the Vogue cover story about the vice president-elect on Instagram.
“I was thinking of my baby nieces, who will only know a world where a woman is vice president of the United States, a woman of color, a black woman, a woman with parents who were born outside the United States,” Kamala. Harris told Vogue while talking about the night she and Joe Biden gave their victory speeches.
Kamala Harris has written history as the first woman to become a vice president of the United States. She will be the first black woman and the first woman of Indian descent to occupy the office.
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