It is literally a one-woman show!
A magazine cover is always about making a statement. There is a lot of pressure being put on a single image, but it has to be done. In the URL world, attention span only lasts for like a second, and that is also the same IRL. That's why creating a captivating image, something that jumps off the newsstands to lure readers, takes a whole crew to develop. There's the photographer, stylists, beauty experts, and a bucket load of assistants to make that happen.
But for the latest issue of Vogue Italia, it challenges the photo shoot norm and gives all the power, and the work, to one person—music and cosmetics superstar Rihanna. Dubbed as its DIY issue, the June 2021 release of the fashion magazine features the matriarch of Fenty Beauty on its cover, where she styled and photographed herself.
Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Emanuele Farneti described the issue as exploring the thin gray area between two creative sides. To bring it to reality, Rihanna played both "the artist and the muse, the observer and the observed, the director and the character."
"In recent years, we have tried to use our cover in many different ways: with photography or illustrations, or with no images at all," Emanuele posted. "But we've never invited the featured person to do everything by themselves: to pose, take photographs, and choose the clothes to wear. If there was a right occasion for this new experiment, it could only have been the DIY issue."
"Neither could there have been a better protagonist than Rihanna—who has appeared on so many covers, but never like this time in the version in which she, and only she, had chosen to portray herself, without filters or any mediation," he continued.
The editorial shoot featured the "Wild Thoughts" singer in all sorts of couture creations from dark ensembles by Valentino to pieces by Hermes, Raf Simons, and Savage x Fenty.
Check out what she has done below:
