Vogue Paris has its first transgender cover star, Brazilian Valentina Sampaio, the BBC reports:
“In her editorial column for next month’s issue, Emmanuelle Alt goes on to say the transgender model is the “absolute equal” of other iconic women in fashion. ‘Apart from one small detail, Valentina, the femme fatale, was born a boy,’ she adds. ‘It’s a detail one would prefer not to have to mention… but Valentina is on the cover of Vogue this month, not just for her looks or her sparkling personality, but because despite herself she embodies an age-old arduous struggle to be recognized and not to be perceived as something Other.'”
In her editor’s letter in the issue, Alt writes that when Sampaio turned up at a studio in London to be shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, she looked exactly like her idea of a typical French Vogue beauty, any Vogue beauty, no different from Daria Werbowy or Anna Ewers; it’s just that she happened to be born a boy. Alt goes on to say she felt it was important right now, crucial even, to celebrate those who are transgender, adding that when the day comes that a model like Sampaio can appear on a magazine cover without the publication needing to mention a model’s chosen gender identity, then victory really will have been achieved.
More Sampaio:
