November, 1997, passed like another trivial and freezing autumn month, in bustling New York, when the kiosks, still countless, displayed the American edition of “Elle” with a black model on the cover. Something unusual in the country, despite being three years away from a new millennium. The cover generated curiosity, but not total strangeness because, before it, other models with African ancestry were shown in this way, albeit in a way lost to time. It happened with Beverly Johnson, the first African-American to appear on the front page of a prestigious women’s magazine, the American “Vogue”, in 1974. What seemed impossible, happened. At that time, the agents who represented her assured her that she would not be successful as a model due to the color of her complexion, hairdressers refused to treat her hair because it was frizzy and Kodak did not manufacture a film that was compatible with the black tone of her skin. Still, Beverly Johnson broke the scandalous Caucasian cycle of “Vogue”, 82 years after the founding of the title and 42 years after having debuted a photographic cover, in July 1932. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donyale Luna was the first black woman to appear on the cover of British “Vogue”, photographed by David Bailey, in 1966.
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