Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her team had been anticipating the release of her latest cover story in Vogue magazine. Yet, when the front cover was released, the VP to-be’s team and her social media followers weren’t too pleased with the outcome.
On Sunday (Jan. 10), Vogue magazine introduced the Vice-President-elect as their February cover star by unveiling the front cover of the print magazine on Instagram. The cover features Harris in a casual black blazer, blue jeans, and low-top Chuck Taylor sneakers while standing in front of a background inspired by the colors of her sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. Soon after it dropped, the cover instantly received feedback from Harris’ followers.
Hours after the cover made its rounds throughout the Internet, journalist Yashar Ali confirmed that the photo featured on the cover was not the one Harris’ team and Vogue’s team, including Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, had agreed on.
“In the cover that they expected, Vice President-elect Harris was wearing a powder blue suit,” Ali wrote in a thread of tweets about the cover. “That was the cover that the Vice President-elect’s team and the Vogue team, including Anna Wintour, mutually agreed upon…which is standard for fashion magazines.”
Ali also published the cover that both teams expected to see on the print cover of the magazine. However, the pink and green cover has already been sent to print and will be the image that will hit newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes. The cover featuring the Madam Vice President in powder blue will be the cover for the digital edition of February’s issue. The unpopular cover has drawn out numerous opinions not only about Harris’ casual appearance but also the magazine’s overall treatment of the cover.
“This isn’t just a fashion issue,” one Twitter user said. “Vogue is undermining the authority of our first Black and Asian American woman Vice President at a time when millions of Republicans don’t recognize her as legitimate.”
See more reactions below.