British Vogue Spotlights Disabled Tastemakers On Five-Cover Issue
Images via British Vogue
British Vogue magazine is turning the lens toward disabled talents in its multi-cover May 2023 issue, in hopes that the fashion industry will step up accessibility efforts to recognize, and uplift, the community.
Activists, creatives, and models take the covers and pages of the Reframing Fashion: Dynamic, Daring & Disabled edition. Fronting the magazine’s five new covers are trailblazers including Sinéad Burke, a writer and disability activist who is also the consulting editor of accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens; and actor Selma Blair, who has been opening up about her experience with multiple sclerosis after her diagnosis in 2018.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Joining them are sign language performer Justina Miles, who wowed the world when she animatedly interpreted Rihanna’s performance at the 2023 Super Bowl; Aaron Rose Philip, the first Black, transgender, and disabled model to be represented by a renowned modeling agency; and Ellie Goldstein, a model with Down syndrome.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Importantly, the magazine underscores the diverse spectrum of disabled people filling the spaces of fashion, the arts, activism, and sports with a total of 19 icons featured within the pages.
The May 2023 issue, arriving on newsstands from April 25, was produced in conjunction with Burke’s consultancy. As part of a tie-in with the UK’s Royal National Institute of Blind People, this edition will also be available in physical and digital braille copies, along with an audio version.
View this post on Instagram
In a note, British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful reflects that shifting the focus to the disabled community “was a necessary and overdue education for all—and taught us many lessons we will carry forward into the future.”
Enninful expresses that the portfolio challenges readers to ponder: “We all engage with fashion, but does fashion engage with all of us?”
“Dynamism of spirit, of talent, of imagination, is what the stars of this issue have in spades,” the editor-in-chief stresses. “It is this quality that the industry—and here I include Vogue—must also lean into if it is to better serve the disabled community, alongside the disabled community; with jobs, in the design of retail spaces, of photography studios, of digital interfaces, events, communications and, of course, clothes.”
View this post on Instagram
Since embarking on this initiative, the British Vogue office has reconsidered its own accessibility shortcomings. The magazine has now improved lift and ramp access at its London photo studios, as well as added alt text to its website and social media channels.
“This is a movement, not a moment,” Enninful concludes.
View this post on Instagram
[via CNN and British Vogue, images via British Vogue]
