By Sophia Ahmadi, Courier Staff Writer
On Wednesday of May 3rd, Vogue India released their 10th anniversary cover and many were not pleased with what they saw.
Plastered on the latest edition of the Vogue India, was model and television star, Kendall Jenner. Jenner started her modeling career at the age of fourteen, modeling for Forever 21 and Teen Vogue. Since then, her modeling career has peaked and she is currently representing brands such as Vanity Fair and Marc Jacobs. Although her modeling career has a large amount of credibility, many people still don’t think that she should have been on the cover of the magazine, and I agree.
Vogue India was established in 2007 in order to provide an Indian edition of the monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine, Vogue. This magazine was the first magazine ever released in India that is 100% foreign made. Having this magazine is a huge step towards Indian representation in the fashion world, and it should be seen as so. Young Indian women and men who are interested in fashion should see this magazine and use it as a reminder that they can make it that far if they aspire to. They shouldn’t feel as if striving to be successful in this industry is pointless. Therefore, I feel as though it is necessary, if not crucial, that the models and designers within the magazine are of Indian descent.
Vogue India first released the cover design to their 938,000 followers on their Instagram page. This image now has thousands of comments expressing how they feel about the issue, and most of them are unhappy.
One person commented, “I just don’t understand the reasoning behind this cover. I tried to Google to find out if there is any news regarding Kendall Jenner and India and there was no relevance. I think there is a big difference between putting an Indian woman on the US Vogue cover- either the woman lives in the US or works there. Otherwise she would not be on a US cover at all. But that doesn’t seem the case with India Vogue.”
I agree with this in that if Kendall had done something involving India, then maybe it would make sense to feature her.
James Logan senior, Sarah Chawla, shares her opinion on the topic. She says, women of color are already given so few opportunities and vogue India had so many choices of Indian women who would’ve been a good representation of Indian culture to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Their choice of a mainstream white model furthers the lack of representation and recognition of different ethnicities.