The September 2020 issue of American Vogue is out. AOC’s in-depth focus on cover artists Kerry James Marshall and Jordan Easteel will be finished today. This moment, we share ‘The Custom of the Country’ a fashion story styled by Carlos Mazario and featuring a wide-range of fashion industry luxury brands.

Photographer John Edmonds captures Alek Wek, Akon Changkou, and Toni Smith in a leisurely game of cards and a glass of champagne. Who knows — perhaps they are members of US Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris’ Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, celebrating their sorority sister’s new national stage trajectory.

Make no mistake, if these women are AKAs, they are not ladies of leisure, but a force to be reckoned with. Read a July 2019 New York Times politics feature Kamala Harris’ Secret Weapon: The Sisterhood of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Who is Vogue September photographer John Edmonds? Not well known in fashion circles, the Brooklyn-based graduate of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at Yale University is known for the striking formalism and exploration of identity, sexuality and desire among black communities. Those human interactions occur among lovers, friends, casual acquaintances and strangers.

Edmonds’ work was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, writes the New York Times, who takes a deep dive into his art in Speaking to the Future: How the Photographer John Edmonds Captures ‘the Real and the Imagined’ the Imagined’ the Imagined’ the Imagined’

In July 2019, the Brooklyn Museum presented the DC-native photographer with its Inaugural Price for Emerging Artists. AOC will follow-up on the outcome of that award in a later post.

As the awardee of the UOVO Prize, Edmonds receives a 50×50-foot public art installation on the façade of UOVO: BROOKLYN, the forthcoming Bushwick location of the art storage company that sponsors the prize, a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and a $25,000 cash grant.
“We’re so pleased to offer the UOVO Prize to John Edmonds, an artist whose gorgeous photographs negotiating the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and spirituality have been captivating us over the past several years,” said Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum. “We can’t wait to share his ambitious body of work with Brooklyn, both inside the museum and outside on the UOVO: BROOKLYN façade.”

As a woman who has lived twice in Brooklyn — but not long enough to see it emerge in all its black beauty glory — I’m thrilled to tell the stories of Brooklyn artists in-depth, to celebrate their “arrival” with a strong determination to keep their identity, activism and integrity intact.

I’ve not been Anna Wintour’s greatest fan over the years. It would have been better if Hillary had won the 2016 presidential election and Anna had gone on to become US ambassador to the Court of St. James. This is not our American reality, and so AOC offers praise to Vogue’s Anna Wintour for her attempt to assemble a September issue that is a testimonial to our difficult, democracy-threatening, racial-reckoning American moment.

For me — for what I seek from a magazine like Vogue — Anne Wintour is succeeding in this difficult moment. That’s only to say she’s looking like British Vogue under Edward Enninful. However she gets to a place that is commercial (lots of clothes to buy in this editorial) but also relevant as it relates to the world around her is fine with me. Now is not the time to judge each other. It’s the time to applaud each progressive step forward with every breath we have left to take in the world we call home. . ~ Anne

Note: Anne of Carversville does NOT take part in numerous affiliate marketing programs. We have NOT been paid for — nor will we derive any income from — this post. Ours is original , free writing about these images, inspired by our “fair use” public service relationship with readers. More details around AOC’s new campaign coming soon.