‘Washed out mess’: Vogue puts Kamala Harris on the cover, but Twitter users aren’t happy – By Kim Willis (USA Today) / January 10, 2021
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is splashed on the February cover of Vogue, but many social media users are less than thrilled with the magazine’s photo choice.
Two covers are posted with the interview, both shot by Tyler Mitchell, the Black photographer who was hired to shoot Beyoncé for the magazine in 2018. One depicts Harris, 56, in a powder-blue Michael Kors power suit, her arms crossed, with a flag pin on her lapel. The second, more controversial image shows Harris in a more casual black Donald Deal jacket, wearing matching Converse Chuck Taylors, pearls around her neck, and standing against a pink and green backdrop, which the magazine described as a nod to her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
Fans slammed the latter image when it surfaced early Sunday morning on Twitter, calling it disrespectful and speculating that the image was deliberately washed out to lighten her skin.
“The team at Vogue loved the images Tyler Mitchell shot and felt the more informal image captured Vice President-elect Harris’s authentic, approachable nature – which we feel is one of the hallmarks of the Biden/Harris administration,” Vogue said in a statement to USA TODAY provided by Remi Berger of parent company Conde Nast. “To respond to the seriousness of this moment in history, and the role she has to play leading our country forward, we’re celebrating both images of her as covers digitally.”
