Rihanna on Luxury, Politics, Guns in Ethan James Green Vogue US November 2019 Cover Story

Cover Look Rihanna wears a Fenty tulle coat. Forevermark and Maria Tash earrings. Hair, Yusef Williams; makeup, Kanako Takase. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman.Photographed by Ethan James Green, Vogue, November 2019

Rihanna’s vision of luxury is “aesthetically capricious, casually category-busting, impossibly cool”, writes Abby Aguirre, in her American Vogue November 2019 cover story about the mega wattage, 31-year-old woman musician and activist, beauty, lingerie and athleisure mogul, and now head of her own Fenty maison, in partnership with LVMH. Tonne Goodman styles Rihanna in superb images by Ethan James Green.

Like everything else she touches, Rihanna is reimagining luxury fashion at the highest levels.

First and foremost, Fenty maison fashion had to be “honest”, explains Rihanna. “I’m not the face of my brand, but I am the muse, and my DNA has to run all the way through it,” she says. “I don’t want anyone to pull up my website and think, Rihanna would never wear that.”

Future Perfect Rihanna’s decision to be Fenty’s muse, says Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri, “speaks to the increasing need for women to be in charge of their appearance, their bodies, and their lives.” Gucci dress and Maria Tash earrings. In this story: hair, Yusef Williams; makeup, Kanako Takase.Photographed by Ethan James Green, Vogue, November 2019

Having read multiple overviews just now of Rihanna’s Vogue convo, AOC picks up on a thread, not mentioned yet. When Rihanna speaks of Fenty DNA, she sheds the light on AOC’s DNA as well. We tell all of Rihanna’s important stories:

“Fenty was different out of the gate. Its first collection, released in May, offered sculptural suits and minidresses with power shoulders and snatched waists—the work of a sure hand, rendered with Caribbean flair. But the clothes told a larger story, one that linked Afrocentric fashion, black nationalism, and the Caribbean diaspora—paying homage, in particular, to Kwame Brathwaite, the documentary photographer and pillar of midcentury Harlem’s Black Is Beautiful movement. Fenty posted original Brathwaite images on its website and social feeds—one showed three Grandassa models in front of a banner that said, buy black—and noted that the documentarian, born in Brooklyn to Bajan parents, shares a similar surname with Rihanna’s maternal family. (Brathwaite, now 81, gave Rihanna his blessing.)”

Love The Way She Lies “I’ve never been afraid to take risks.” Rihanna wears an Alexander McQueen dress. Rings by Shay Jewelry, Hoorsenbuhs, Hermès, and Delfina Delettrez. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman.Photographed by Ethan James Green, Vogue, November 2019

Rihanna’s interviews are always like a game of ping pong. Aguirre writes:

“I ask Rihanna if we can discuss politics. “How deep you wanna get?” she says. “However deep you’re willing to go,” I say. She signals that I may proceed, and I ask if it’s true that she turned down the Super Bowl halftime show in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. “Absolutely,” she says. “I couldn’t dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”’

On the topic of gun deaths in El Paso

‘“It is devastating,” she says. “People are being murdered by war weapons that they legally purchase. This is just not normal. That should never, ever be normal. And the fact that it’s classified as something different because of the color of their skin? It’s a slap in the face. It’s completely racist.” She goes on: “Put an Arab man with that same weapon in that same Walmart and there is no way that Trump would sit there and address it publicly as a mental health problem. The most mentally ill human being in America right now seems to be the president.”’

Stir It Up Is her next album a reggae album? “I like to look at it as a reggae-inspired or reggae-infused album,” Rihanna says. “It’s not gonna be typical of what you know as reggae.” Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda dress. Panconesi by Marco Panconesi earrings.Photographed by Ethan James Green, Vogue, November 2019

In a super rich, champagne-laced dialogue, richer than beef fillet and potato dauphinoise, then chocolate cake with Chantilly cream, that inspired the room to part with more than $5 million in cash recently at Rihanna’s Diamond Ball in support of her Clara Lionel Foundation, Abby Aquirre flies pretty high for a journalist who forgot her notes. Actually Rihanna moved up the interview more than once,, now that she runs on LVMH tycoon time. Stop by Vogue, as the Rihanna read is more than worth your time.