Last week I blogged about being placed on a waiting list for the July issue of Vogue Italia.  Well I picked up my copy today.  Finally!!!!!  It was hot as hell outside but I was determined to pick up my copy, lol.  My copy has Philadelphia model Sessilee Lopez on the cover.  There’s an article about Sessilee in Philly.com.  For those who work or live in the D.C. area check out the magazine and newstand store located next to Farragut North Metro and Starbucks on K Street. 

Cover spotlights black models’ role

By Elizabeth Wellington
Fashion Columnist

When 19-year-old Sessilee Lopez went to a casting call this spring with career-making fashion photographer Stephen Meisel, the West Philadelphia native didn’t know she was on the verge of making history.

This month, Lopez is one of about a dozen models in Italian Vogue’s glossy dedication to the black supermodel. The mag features an unprecedented four-page foldout cover of high fashion’s most sought-after brown faces: Liya Kebede, Naomi Campbell, Jourdan Dunn and, yes, Sessilee Lopez.

Inside are 40 pages of the industry’s biggest mocha fashionistas ever, including Beverly Johnson, the first black woman to grace the cover of American Vogue in 1974, as well as Tyra Banks, Alek Wek and Chanel Iman.

In a modern-day fashion world where celebrities are replacing models on the cover of magazines, and designers are using pale, thin women on the catwalks, this issue of Italian Vogue is monumental.

“Who would have thought that some random chick from Philly would make the cover of Italian Vogue?” Lopez recently gushed in a telephone interview from Paris, where she has spent days shuttling from casting calls for the haute couture shows.

The beauty has appeared in photo spreads in Elle and Vibe and Italian Vogue. She has walked for Zac Posen, Anna Sui and Rachel Roi. Last fall she modeled on London runways for designer Vivienne Westwood. It was a big deal for her, she said.

“I always hated the fact that you would see so many women of color on calls, but when you got the job it was just you,” Lopez said. ” . . . Once they find their one black girl – if they use any – that’s it.”

Besides all the models listed on the cover being featured there’s also photos of Jody Watley, Angela Bassett, Tina Turner and Queen Latifah. There are articles about Grace Jones and Aretha Franklin and a conversation with Bethann Hardison. I don’t understand one word of Italian but I’m still gonna enjoy this magazine