You Know Africa Is In Fashion When . . .

Vanity Fair has a special issue devoted to the subject. The issue is guest-edited by Bono, with 20 different covers at the newstand featuring evryone from Brad Pitt to Condi Rice to Madonna.



I took the $4.50 hit for Opinio Juris readers (our crossover audience is probably in the single digits). What can you say, it’s an effort that’s hard to criticize at the same time that one wonders how much traction it’s likely to have. Africa is literally “in fashion” here, sandwiched between the usual ultra-luxe advertising, including a tastefully nude Jennifer Aniston posing for SmartWater and Tiger Woods in front of his Gulfstream. At the same time, there’s not much fashion in Africa itself (leaving aside the story on surfing in South Africa, an interview with the next Iman, and an ad pushing varietal chocolates), although of course that’s not the point. We have VF editor-in-chief Graydon Carter first thinking that Bono’s guest stint meant he “could take the month off and work on [his] tennis game.” And one might expect many habitual readers to skip straight to the back of the book and the excerpt of Tina Brown’s new biography of Princess Di.



If the issue raises consciousness of Africa’s fixable ills even incrementally, and pulls in a few more converts to the One Campaign, then it’s done more good than the typical magazine issue of this description. But can these people hope to make RED the color of choice for more than one product cycle? I think the real help here is likely to come through deeper transnational communities, religious ones in particular, and the deep pockets. The fashionistas are too fickle to keep their attention focused on anything for very long.