may model breakdown

Liya Kebede, Natalia Vodianova, Anna Jagodzinska, Isabeli Fontana, Lara Stone, Jourdan Dunn, Raquel Zimmermann, Caroline Trentini & Natasha Poly

Fashion enthusiasts, myself included, went into overdrive speculating who made the cut for Vogue‘s highly anticipated May models cover and the results? A sort of surprising, but entirely unsurprising mix of models. I don’t even know where to begin, there’s way too much goodness to discuss! So here it is broken down into digestible pieces:

Diversity: Is Vogue making an actual effort here? They’ve put a black woman on the front for the third issue in a row (MObama and Beyonce preceded) and didn’t hide them in the fold (but just ignore that most of the other cover models are blonde Europeans/Brazilians). Last year was a whitewash with the exception of b-baller LeBron James who made the April cover with Gisele albeit to controversy and King Kong comparisons.
Nationality: None of the models on this American Vogue cover are American. The breakdown is Brazilian (3), Russian (2), Ethiopian, Polish, Dutch and British.
Vogue favourites: Not a stretch that Liya Kebede, Natalia Vodianova, Raquel Zimmermann and Caroline Trentini made the cover. Vogue always waxes poetic about Natalia’s rag to riches fairytale and has at least one editorial of Raquel and/or Caroline jumping per month.
Vogue Paris homage? Is there an Anna Wintour-Carine Roitfeld (VP”s editrix) rivalry? And if so, what does the surprising inclusion of Carine’s top model, Lara Stone, mean? One can only guess.
Old vs. New: The cover says “Faces of the Moment,” but ask any good modelizer and they’ll say all the cover girls ain’t quite so. Who is relevant? Jourdan, who draws Naomi comparisons, is definitely the newest and hottest of the bunch. Anna J and Lara both rule campaign- and editorial-wise and Raquel and Natasha are always of the moment. Not so fresh are Liya, Natasha and Isabeli, who are definitely classic and working models but not “of the moment.” And Caroline’s been taking a break from it all, so she hasn’t been active of late.
My wish list: Yeah, I’ll admit they got it mostly right, so I’ll keep Anna J, Natasha, Raquel, Lara and Jourdan, but add Anja, Iris, Lily D, Coco, Karlie, Toni or maybe even new Ralph Lauren faces Ubah Hassan or Tao Okamoto.
ETA: Forgot some of my other picks- Sigrid Agren, Heidi Mount, Anna Selezneva are major!