Making a statement on the devastation caused in Italy by COVID-19, Vogue Italia has previewed an entirely white April 2020 cover. The magazine had another cover in the works ready to publish two weeks ago, but scrapped the entire issue to make a statement on the pandemic, which has hit Italy especially hard.
On Instagram, the caption under the cover reads, “In its long history stretching back over a hundred years, Vogue has come through wars, crises, acts of terrorism. Its noblest tradition is never to look the other way.
Just under two weeks ago, we were about to print an issue that we had been planning for some time, and which also involved L’Uomo Vogue in a twin project. But to speak of anything else, while people are dying, doctors and nurses are risking their lives and the world is changing forever, is not the DNA of Vogue Italia. Accordingly, we shelved our project and started from scratch.
On why the cover is white, the caption explained, “White is first of all respect. White is rebirth, the light after darkness, the sum of all colors.
White is the color of the uniforms worn by those who put their own lives on the line to save ours. It represents space and time to think, as well as to stay silent. White is for those who are filling this empty time and space with ideas, thoughts, stories, lines of verse, music and care for others.
White recalls when, after the crisis of 1929, this immaculate colour was adopted for clothes as an expression of purity in the present, and of hope in the future. Above all: white is not surrender, but a blank sheet waiting to be written, the title page of a new story that is about to begin.”
In the publications’s note from the editor, magazine chief Emanuele Farneti wrote, “In times like this, we felt that a silent cover would speak louder than any word or image. It’s a universal message of purity, strength, respect, and hope. Yet behind the silence of this cover, a very lively and personal issue of Vogue Italia comes to life. More than 40 artists and friends welcomed the challenge to contribute from their own quarantines. We personally asked each artist to ‘stay true to the constraints that we are all sharing in these difficult times, creating simple, honest images,’ and to depict the fashion ‘in a way that most reflects their personal moment, with nothing else in mind.’
