We Heart: Beyonce’s History-Making Vogue Cover

Queen Bey snagged the highly coveted September issue cover of Vogue, which was teased on the star’s Instagram yesterday and set the BeyHive abuzz.

Beyoncé has graced countless covers in her music career—and this is her third time covering fashion bible Vogue—but this was no ordinary cover. This marked the first time a black woman artist has been on the September issue and only the third time a black woman has been on the September cover—Naomi Campbell and Halle Berry came before.

For those of you who don’t dabble in the fashion world, the September issue is traditionally considered the most anticipated, highest-selling issue of the year as it kicks off autumn when many women are making their seasonal wardrobe shifts. It’s kind of a big deal: well-known filmmaker R.J. Cutler even made a documentary on the subject.

Whoever lands that all-important Vogue cover has basically sealed their status as the “It-Woman” of that year, and who else could it have gone to but the unabashedly feminist Beyoncé?

Par for the course, Bey slayed in a Marc Jacobs coat and gown with straight-out-of-the-pool hair a la “Drunk in Love.”

The accompanying article features heavyweights of the fashion world, such Marc Jacobs and Ricardo Tisci singing her praises, and designer Stella McCartney saying, “Her appeal crosses art forms, genders and generations.”

As groundbreaking as Beyoncé’s cover is, Vogue has some way to go before its choices in cover women can be considered at all diverse. The first black woman ever to be a U.S. Vogue cover was supermodel Beverly Johnson in 1974. Since then, one would still be hard-pressed to find more than the occasional black cover woman.

You can get your hands on the historic issue when it hits newsstands on August 25. In the meantime, you can revel in our Beyoncé issue from 2013. #FlashbackFriday, anyone?

 

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Associate editor of Ms. magazine