Malala Yousafzai Covers British Vogue July 2021, Lensed by Nick Knight

Malala Yousafzai brings her ultimate activist self to the July 2021 issue of British Vogue. AOC has written regularly about Malala for a decade — since that dreadful day when the Taliban put a bullet in her blogger girl on schoolbus brain in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled Swat Valley.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner wears sustainable designs from Stella McCartney and Gabriela Hearst on the cover and fashion shoot styled by Kate Phelan, then lensed by Nick Knight. McCartney wrote on her Instagram: “Thank you @Edward_Enninful and team for joining us in celebrating all women that stay strong in their truth and fight for equality. x Stella.”

Gabriela Hearst also paid tribute to Malala on Instagram, as she launches her post-Oxford life. Included on the Hearst watch list is Malala’s new media company Extracurricular, a joint venture between the activist and AppleTV.

Like millions more human hearts, we’ve watched Malala survive after being flown to Britain for specialist surgery and life itself. We watched survive and thrive, with each blog post detailing another feather in Malala’s Pashtun headscarf.

With the new fashion editor of the upcoming Vogue Scandinavia Rawdah Mohamed sending the message “Hands off my hijab” on digital media, Yousafzai also addressed the significance of wearing her headscarf in her British Vogue: interview with Sirin Kale.

"It's a cultural symbol for us Pashtuns, so it represents where I come from. And Muslim girls or Pashtun girls or Pakistani girls, when we follow our traditional dress, we're considered to be oppressed, or voiceless, or living under patriarchy. I want to tell everyone that you can have your own voice within your culture, and you can have equality in your culture," she told journalist Kale.

We’re pulling Malala’s entire story to this single spot on AOC. From the moving memoir she published in 2013, to addressing the UN on her 16th birthday, creating the Malala Fund, her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, graduating from Oxford— we have Malala’s story on AOC right here.

Angelo Lamparelli Captures Kybelé 'Mother of the Gods' for Vogue Portugal April 2021

Angelo Lamparelli Captures Kybelé 'Mother of the Gods' for Vogue Portugal April 2021

A fashion story that AOC has anticipated is released in the pages of Vogue Portugal’s April 2021 issue. Originally from Phrygia, Kybelé - or, in Portuguese, Cibele -, was considered the "Mother of the Gods", or mother Goddess, and symbolized the fertility of nature, writes the magazine.

‘Kybelé’ was the dominant source of spiritual and supernatural power among early humans. She existed long before the rise of male power and dominance.

Just now AOC Googled for results on “goddesses preceded gods” and Google page one results all deal with Greek mythology. Search results focus on 5th century BC Greece and the Olympian Gods. They were preceded even in Greece by the Titans and “in the beginning’ Gaia, who emerged from Chaos.

Some Greek scholars highlight Chaos as the first God and Gaia as Mother Earth and the first Goddess. Others only cite Gaia as the first (God)ess and Mother Earth who emerged from the void of Chaos.

What’s relevant is the fact that gods and goddesses existed long before Greece and most scholars agree that Kybelé, Gaia and other names for powerful, female (sorry, but I don’t know what other word to use than ‘female’) deities existed long before the rise of monotheism and fifth century Greece.

In a note of irony, AOC would love to share the names of both goddesses featured in this important editorial, but only Ajok Daing can be identified via Models.com as the darker skin vision of Kybelé. Photographer Angelo Lamparelli [IG] does not name the models, who are styled by Özge Efek. / Hair by Marco Minunno; makeup by Martina D’andrea