Cover Girl: Rihanna for Vogue UK

Posted on Oct 5, 2011 in Fashion

You know, we really should be getting on Rihanna’s case for immediately going for the Marilyn look right after ditching the Ronald McDonald/Jessica Rabbit hair she’d been sporting for so long. But one look at this picture…

Rihanna for Vogue UK Rihanna featured in the November 2011 issue of Vogue UK photographed by Alasdair McLellan and styled by Kate Phelan in a black silk cady and floral-print silk shantung cocktail dress by Armani Privé. Makeup: Mac Cosmetics. Hair: Ursula Stephen.

… and our mouths, they are shut.

Armani Prive Fall 2011 Couture Armani Privé Fall 2011 Couture Collection/Model: Magdalena Langrova (NEXT)

It’s a stunning dress, but we like the cover version so much better.

[Photo Credit: Alasdair McLellan for vogue.co.uk, style.com]

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http://www.facebook.com/jcc0808 Joseph Collier

The dress looks great… but I think her face is kinda posed to get us to examine her brain through her nostrils.
- Anonymous
  
  yup – it also looks like she is sneering
  - Macy Linton
    
    But the sneer is so Vogue! “Silly humans, I am a fashion God. Fear me, for my clothes cost more than your car.”
    
    Not to say it’s attractive, of course. Just appropriate to the magazine. But that dress and that hair… She looks stunning. Bravo.
Anonymous

She looks beautiful and the cover version of the dress is smashing.
http://twitter.com/Verena_Hafner Verena Hafner

I shouldn’t like this because Armani’s couture show did nothing for me. But the modified (to the better) dress on the blue background… it’s a winner for me!

—
verenahafner.wordpress.com
- http://profiles.google.com/misslauraschultz Laura Schultz
  
  I think it’s a better cover dress than a runway or red carpet dress…
Anonymous

Yes the cover version is worlds better than the runway version. But…
“Tilda Swinton, the Great Performer”
THAT’S what I wanna see!
- http://beautyforrealgirls.blogspot.com/ accidental housewife
  
  Yes! Rihanna looks amazing, but I’d love to see SWINTON on the cover.
Anonymous

She WERQs it. I love the alterations for her. On the model, it looks like she tucked a file folder down her front. On Rihanna, the bodice suddenly looks strong, feminine, architectural. The slight angle works much better than the squared off look as the model walks the runway. And the angle of the camera is much better too. I keep trying to hate on the blonde and keep failing… it’s actually right for that look. And as a woman of color, I am loathe to embrace blonde for dark skin– I like my own hair blue black as it naturally is!– but she’s doing it right somehow.
- Anonymous
  
  I agree. I also think Rihanna’s hips help the look too.
  - Anonymous
    
    No doubt. If you’re going to work Marilyn, you’ve got to work the hips.
Anonymous

She looks more like Marilyn than Michelle Williams did.
- Anonymous
  
  Yup: her roots are done.
- Toto Maya
  
  I was just about to say that.
Anonymous

She looks stunning and sophisticated, it’s about time!
http://profiles.google.com/misslauraschultz Laura Schultz

Totally freakin’ hot! She is so beautiful
Vaniljekjeks

I am still very annoyed by her.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3AJ237ND3GAHDQJZ4TLCO4WLRA Emily

She looks amazing.
Anonymous

Hmmm… Not totally digging the cover. Her expression is almost laughable. The dress is fabulous, and the cover shot really shows it off to its best advantage. I do prefer the blond hair to the Ronald McDonald red, though.
http://twitter.com/starrika Ali

I like the dress – just wish I could change out the girl on the cover like I did my paper dolls. I cannot stand her to begin with, and her posing is laughable.
http://profiles.google.com/trashilove { edi } ilovetrash

i absolutely love the dress on her, it’s way way better here than on the model, but i am not crazy about either the makeup or the facial expression. cant tell about the hair from just this picture, though i did like the red.
Anonymous

Mmm, I liked the red better, I think. But damn, she’s wearing that dress.
http://twitter.com/democracydiva Democracy Diva

Her body looks great, but her face does not know how to model.
Anonymous

Her fingernails and facial expression ruin this picture for me. The dress is stunning.
Anonymous

I am so tired of her. She is gorgeous girl but intolerably dull as musician and performer. This should be a beautiful photograph, at least, and she’s definitely working the dress…but something about the washed-out face with the blonde hair and dusty purple makeup makes me think of a corpse. Ew.
MilaXX

LOVE it.
Joanna Schuth

She’s so whitewashed it makes me uncomfortable.
- Anonymous
  
  yeah, I squirmed too. Also, this dress looks like a Marchesa she wore 2 years ago. Yawn.
- Anonymous
  
  yeah, I squirmed too. Also, this dress looks like a Marchesa she wore 2 years ago. Yawn.
- Kristen Williamson
  
  THANK YOU. I look at this cover and I can’t help but think of how whitewashed she looks.
  
  Rihanna is a beautiful girl with beautiful skin, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with her having blonde hair, but for this particular picture, I inadvertently think “What, Vogue, Rihanna was too black for you?”
- Anonymous
  
  So much so, i think that wig looks disconnected from her. I’m actually not digging that blonde on her.
  
  Anyway, to be fair, I’m so mot a fan but we should acknowledge that miss Beyonce did it first (even worse, she had her upper lip reduced).
Joanna Schuth

She’s so whitewashed it makes me uncomfortable.
Lisa

See, she looks beautiful. But the problem I have is why are Vogue US and Vogue UK doing two Marilyn covers right after another?
Anonymous

Whew, everyone is taking a corner: love or hate.

I love. You work those hips and shoulders, girl.

And the tats add just enough modernity.
- Anonymous
  
  I love it too. The version of the dress on the cover is fabulous. I didn’t even notice the tats at first! The folks complaining about her posing crack me up. She didn’t pick that pose or decide to stand that way.
Anonymous

Why in heaven’s name would she want to look like a bleached blonde? Body and dress are stupendous. From the neck up, though, she looks like a hostile chick in a bad wig.
Anonymous

She is totally gorgeous from the neck down. But why does she insist on the clown hair? I wish she’d do something with her hair that actually suits her.
Anonymous

And Tilda Swinton is mentioned on the cover! Woot!
Kate Pearce

She looks way better than the emaciated model in that dress.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1052062518 Megan Moore

FAB!
Anonymous

the runway model forgot to take the hanger out of the dress…opps that her shoulders!!
- Anonymous
  
  Wow, I hadn’t noticed that at first. That is scary-thin.
- Anonymous
  
  Wow, I hadn’t noticed that at first. That is scary-thin.
Loretta Pontillo

I hope I’m not stirring the pot too much, but my honest reaction was: did they photoshop her skin to look lighter? I mean, isn’t she — I forget exactly, so no offense intended if I get it wrong — Jamaican or from Barbados? In other words, isn’t she black? Light skinned black, yes, but not, well, Caucasian. So why is my half-Italian early-October skin darker than hers? Is it my computer monitor? I remember hearing in the past that major fashion magazines suffer a decline in newsstand sales when they have black cover models, but I also have heard that this effect is negated if it’s a movie star or other celebrity as opposed to a random model. (I also think the dress looks gorgeous on her body, and that I can live without that snarly look on her beautiful face.)
- Anonymous
  
  Am so glad someone else thought her look was snarly–not so Marilyn to me, in the face at least.
http://www.facebook.com/suzie.vazquez Suzie Vazquez

I like her in the dress. But I do not like her in the wig.
Helen C

She makes a far far far better Marilyn than Michelle Williams.
Anonymous

Whoa, she does a stunning Marilyn.
Anonymous

Whoa, she does a stunning Marilyn.
Anonymous

She’s pretty & she looks great in the dress. Way better than the model in her version.

I admit I liked the orange better than this blonde on her. Though there is perhaps a happy medium, somewhere, in some other shade.

As someone else said, if I think about it, it makes me a little uncomfortable to see how light she’s looking here, I mean artistic license is allowed ( I said I liked the orange hair, after all) so who am I in my oh-so-well-trained political correctness to quibble if the artistic conceit is mainstream old hollywood glam which is, pretty much, all white with the very, very occasional whitewashed exception (as in Lena Horne)?

Still and all, living in our fraught little culture makes one suspicious of unconscious & unexamined assumptions about beauty.
http://twitter.com/RzYoung RzYoung

That dress is exquisite
Samantha Irene

Love the dress – and Rihanna is working that Marilyn way better than dear Michelle Williams – who – while looking perhaps more similar doesn’t/hasn’t ever given me that Marilyn sensuality and spark… will be interesting to see how that movie plays out. Sorry – that was a rather random side note.
http://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/ Karenlibrarian

It’s very refreshing to see a cover dress that looks BETTER on a real woman than on the underfed runway model. The original dress just looks sad and droopy on that emaciated girl. I’m not in love with Rihanna or her pose but the dress looks fabulous on her.

And she does look lighter than normal! Is it the bright light or has Vogue whitened her skin?
Anonymous

I see no snarl here. All I see is fab and gorge. Love it.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jessica-TallGirl-Freeman/1043623567 Jessica TallGirl Freeman

I don’t really care for the angle of the shot. I think her face looks a bit weird, maybe because I can’t see much of her eyes… She looks great in that dress though.
sweetlilvoice

You can see right up her nose! It’s not a flattering look, especially for a lady as beautiful as Rhianna. I loved her red hair….but I’ll have to see more of this blond look to decide.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EDI2DLE7DE3YPW2ONIHBWOVHMA ecallaw

What’s up with magazines using models’ heads in place of letters? If I didn’t know the name Vogue (okay, maybe that’s unrealistic), I would think the magazine title was Voue, or just be left to wonder what her head was supposed to represent.
Anonymous

looks like Rihannatude in a blond wig, no magic here
Anonymous

The cover version is better. On the runway, the white looks like she stuffed a napkin in there. On the cover, it is a part of the dress. She really does look good as a blond. I still prefer her short, edgy look to the longer hair, though.
http://www.facebook.com/charlotte.horseman Charlotte Horseman

She looks great but the only thing recognizable about Rihanna is her mouth and eyes… not sure anything else is hers…
Judy_J

I do love the cover version of this dress, too. It’s stunning.
Anonymous

My first thought was what this picture would look like if the hair was styled the same way, but dark. That would up-end the Marilyn idea in an interesting way, perhaps. Beautiful gown. I’m not a fan of tattoos, but that one on her hand looks beautiful as an accent to the bodice embroidery. Or maybe that’s henna?
http://twitter.com/applecocola Stacy

Really????? I really don’t like that hair on her, and agreed with Joseph Collier, all I can see are her nostrils in that pose.
http://twitter.com/ryenerman rynerman

I want that dress (and the body and attitude to wear it) so very badly!
http://twitter.com/RobertSanchez36 Robert Sanchez

The dress does look a lot better on Rihanna than the runway model. But her expression and position of her face detracts from the overall elegance.
Anonymous

Beautiful dress and I suppose she looks good in it. Something about her screams “trying too hard” all the time.
http://www.facebook.com/premal.laxman Premal Laxman

She done went to the Chi Chi Rodriguez School For Posing
Anonymous

This looks like another “lightened” photo of a woman of color. Still goes on.
Anonymous

i was also a fan of the long red hair. as i often repeat, i’m a sucker for a beautiful redhead. come on, T-Lo, you know you love that ginger too. as many have remarked, she puts the runway model to shame. rihanna’s attitude is snarling like a tiger while the model’s attitude is saying i can’t wait to get off this runway so i can take this damn thing off my head! lovely dress.
Anonymous

She looks like her upper lip stinks.

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Cover Girl: Rihanna for Vogue UK

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