The Cut tracked down Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani to talk about the glossy's June cover, which features a trio of plus-size models. Sozzani told the site, "All [who work] in fashion are victims -- the media, even myself, even the runways -- of the beauty of the moment," which is, typically, the skinnier the better.
And although she's considered a champion of bigger girls, Sozzani remains (unfortunately) realistic about their future:
Do you think plus-size models will ever get the same work and at the same rate as straight-size models?
No, I don't think so, because for the moment -- and we never know, you know? -- but for the moment I don't think we'll see the same proportion [of plus-size models as straight-size models]. Just like we don't see the same proportion of white and black girls. They use curvy models sometimes, like a provocation, but it is just to show something different, which I don't like honestly. I loved for example Prada, the winter before last she used three or four girls which were curvy girls. So not everybody will embrace that, I don't think so. But I think in a way we will stop to think, do you really want to go on with all these skinny girls? If this is the only question that comes up, for me [the issue] will be a big success.
Sozzani is used to posing those types of questions, most notably with the all-black issue she put out several years ago:
With the black girls now it was two years ago that this happened, and I see on the runway more and more black girls and more and more beautiful black girls. This kind of provocation makes a change; it could not affect everybody, that's for sure. But I don't want it to change the world. I only would like that instead of skinny girls, that they should have real women -- like the moment of the supermodels.
Read the rest at The Cut. And check out what one Vogue Italia's most recent cover girls had to say here.