Bloody hell, I’ll probably have to buy this copy of Vogue, maybe several copies of this Vogue because ya know, one Lupita Nyong’o is on the cover. We saw this coming duh! I would’ve preferred the September Issue, but I doubt it would have made a difference anyhow because of that other cover. Let’s speak frankly, when do I never, Vogue lost whatever panache it had when it put Kim Kardashian on its cover, if we are going by general consensus on the web and the reactions to the April cover, ;). This feels like a token consolation of the sorts, for causing such upset to the people… lol.
BUT its a STUNNING cover. And it is immediately my favourite summer cover. I’m not blown away by her posey, pose but that’s a none issue, I am immediately drawn to her beautiful face. The rest of the shoot is jaw droopingly gorgeous. I love the fact that she looks like she is having a good time, I love the location, Marrakech, I love the styling, I love the make up and I especially love the fact that they haven’t tried to make her look like anything other than the beautiful black woman she is. I mean, major snaps Vogue.
On her incredible year and anonymity; “It just feels like the entertainment industry exploded into my life. People who seemed so distant all of a sudden were right in front of me and recognizing me—before I recognized them!” She arrived at the airport late one night to a flash of paparazzi, a moment that marked the tide changing in her life, “for a split second I looked behind me to see who they (paparazzi) were flashing at—and it was me! That was, I think, the beginning of the end of my anonymity.”
On her foray into fashion and her style sensibilities, she arrived for her meeting with stylist Micaela Erlanger armed with a pinterest board of ideas and she (Erlanger) recalls the ideas as “Bold color, interesting print, interesting silhouette—simple but architectural and feminine…Elegance, but with a sense of humor.”
After returning home from undergraduate studies, she gets her Aha! Moment that would ignite her passion for acting- “this vivid image of myself at 60, looking back at my life and really regretting that I hadn’t tried to be an actor. That was the dawn that I needed to start pursuing this.”
On 12 Years A Slave; “I was really nervous about seeing myself in 12 Years a Slave…because it had been such a profound experience in all ways. I remember it being one of the most joyful times in my life—and also one of the most sorrowful. I didn’t want my experience to be a vain one. But I will say that when I watched it, my heartstrings were pulled so tight for Solomon that I couldn’t go into the ego trip. I cried—I mean, I was inconsolable. I wept for an hour after the movie.”
But I still maintain that a Vogue cover is just a Vogue cover, like any other magazine cover, and not a certification of who one is or what they have or will achieve. Just like the red carpet is just a rug.
Still, Lupita stays slaying and I am here for ALL OF IT!