Paloma Elsesser wants ‘fashion to never let this momentum seize until seeing bodies like mine and beyond are no longer radical’

Plus-size model Paloma Elsesser is the latest to make it to the four January 2021 covers of Vogue magazine. The previous ones are actress Frances McDormand, then tennis player Naomi Osaka and now Paloma Elsesser.

Paloma is seen wearing a translucent Michael Kors Collection dress as she stands in a water body. The shoot was styled by Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who started out as an intern in the Vogue fashion closet.

Sharing the cover, she wrote, “This is the first Vogue cover styled by a black woman. This is my first Vogue cover. It was shot by Annie Leibovitz and that’s just about the wildest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Gabriella Karefa-Johnson continued, “Vogue is where I grew up. This is a dream I didn’t know if I’d realize and I’m just so proud of myself, and proud of [Paloma], and proud of [Latisha Chong], and proud of [Janelle Okwodu], and happy for the little black girls who can go to the newsstand and buy the worlds most powerful fashion magazine and see themselves on the cover and in the creative team that brought it to life.”

This is Paloma Elsesser’s first solo cover for American Vogue. In an emotional video on her own Instagram, she opened up the magazine while video-chatting with her family. In another post, she wrote that the shoot was a “surreal” experience — to work and collaborate with women she “so deeply” admires, and to shoot an American Vogue cover as a “chubby, short, mixed-race women who never imagined this would be her reality.”

“Although my heart swells with gratitude, I am not satisfied,” Elsesser’s Instagram post continued. “I urge fashion to never let this momentum [cease] until seeing bodies and experiences like mine and beyond are no longer radical, no longer different; no longer rare. I want to see bigger bodied femmes, dark skin femmes, disabled people, and all the iterations of identity that have left so many alone in media. I want this moment to render a new year of possibility and a lifetime of hope.”