While the New York Fashion Week continues to push for diversity on the runway, Vogue Paris is making its own statement by featuring its first transgender model on the cover of the fashion magazine's March issue.
Photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, the model Valentina Sampaio was seen on the cover wearing a bold metallic dress and donning a smokey eye look, NBC news reported.
Translated from French, the cover reads "Transgender beauty: How they're shaking up the world."
The cover of the March issue, which will hit the stands on February 23, was revealed in an Instagram post by Vogue Paris captioned: "This month we are proud to celebrate transgender beauty and how models like Valentina Sampaio, who is posing for her first ever Vogue cover, are changing the face of fashion and deconstructing prejudice."
In the issue's editorial note, Vogue Paris Editor-in-Chief Emmanuelle Alt describes the moment Sampaio arrived at the studio, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, as stunningly beautiful as any Vogue beauty.
"She is the absolute equal of Gisele, Daria, Edie or Anna. Apart from one small detail: Valentina, the femme fatale, was born a boy," Alt wrote.
Alt's decision to put a transgender model on the cover of the March issue of Vogue is meant to send a powerful message about the importance of human rights, which Alt told Holgate "aren't going in a good direction".
Though this kind of visibility is a step forward for both Vogue Paris and the fashion industry, Alt finished her editorial note by reminding readers that there is still a great amount of progress to be made.
"Only when a [transgender] person poses on the front cover of a fashion magazine and it is no longer necessary to write an editorial on the subject will we know that the battle is won," she concluded.
--IANS
sm/vm
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