Why Vogue Italia's New Cover is Genius
Photo Courtesy of Vogue Italia
In the midst of the Corona Virus and a worldwide movement to end racism, Vogue Italia is dedicating their June cover to the future leaders of this world: children. ‘Our New World’ will feature eight covers of eight young artists from all over the world, and the issue will be entirely dedicated to children. From ages 2 to 10, children from around the world come together to create the eight covers, showcasing symbols of rebirth and purity, and a lesson that adults across the world will hopefully take in.
As our world begins to slowly recover from a pandemic, and a civil rights movement is on the rise, children are truly a blank slate in a way, a sponge ready to absorb any and all information thrown their way. Emanuele Farneti does not only recognize and understand this, but by putting these children’s drawings on the cover, he is calling attention to a young and easily influenced perspective. “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child,” begins their caption on Instagram, and the carefree nature Farneti chose to exhibit on this cover is cutting the edge of fashion today. We can become so absorbed with the complexity of not only life but the fashion industry as well, and it is times like these when we need to take a step back, and we might be able to imagine what our world would be like if we could think like a child again.
As our world begins to slowly recover from a pandemic, and a civil rights movement is on the rise, children are truly a blank slate in a way, a sponge ready to absorb any and all information thrown their way. Emanuele Farneti does not only recognize and understand this, but by putting these children’s drawings on the cover, he is calling attention to a young and easily influenced perspective. “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child,” begins their caption on Instagram, and the carefree nature Farneti chose to exhibit on this cover is cutting the edge of fashion today. We can become so absorbed with the complexity of not only life but the fashion industry as well, and it is times like these when we need to take a step back, and we might be able to imagine what our world would be like if we could think like a child again.
Some may see this cover as a cop out, a way to dance around creating an ‘actual’ cover in these trying times, but I think of it as quite the opposite. Turning to children to see their perspective, which in many occasions is unheard, is quite frankly brilliant. We see how they view the industry, and in this instance how they saw Chanel’s Pre-Fall 2019/2020, Métiers d'Art. But more importantly, it is so uplifting and refreshing in a sense to turn to the youngest generation, asking them to not only shape the cover but to imagine the future as well. Maybe this will be a call to those in the fashion community, a challenge to how we will come together post pandemic, hopefully pushing the boundaries of creativity in a new direction. Would we be discussing this cover if it had been just another conventional photo shoot? Probably not. Maybe our new world will give fashion that extra push, shying away from predictability and repetitiveness, to not only think out of the box, but perhaps create a new one.