Model poses in blackface, ethnicwear for Vogue
Will the racially insensitive act of Blackface ever die? Doesn’t seem like it will. Earlier this week we wrote about a Kentucky assistant pastor who dressed in Blackface for a boxing match.
Now, the latest method of offense is brought to us by Vogue Italia.
This time around the culprit is Vogue Italia. The glossy’s March 2014 issue includes a feature entitled “Abracadabra” that was shot by Steven Meisel and shows model Saskia de Brauw in a series of images with her skin darkened while posing in ethnic wears — headdresses, colorful wrappings, etc.
Not all the images portray Saskia in dark makeup; the ones that don’t, however, show the Dutch model painted in traditional African tribal markings. And the addition of the African animals doesn’t help matters. Although the feature doesn’t depict historical minstral-inspired Blackface, it’s still in bad taste.
This isn’t the first time Vogue has used Blackface in its work.
They made a lot of folks angry with their Vogue Netherlands’ “Heritage Heroes” atrocity, Numéro’s “African Queen” fail and Metal magazine’s “Transmission” faux pas.
Thoughts on Vogue’s ad?
Do they just not care?
Sound off below!