Supermodel Naomi Campbell said on Sunday that Vogue magazine should launch an African edition to recognise the continent's contribution to a global fashion industry that has been criticised for its lack of diversity.
Campbell, who was visiting Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, to appear on the runway at Arise Fashion Week, said there was a need for better representation of the continent.
"There should be a Vogue Africa," she said in an interview. "We just had Vogue Arabia - it is the next progression. It has to be," she said, referring to the edition of the magazine aimed at a readership in the Middle East that launched last year.
"Africa has never had the opportunity to be out there and their fabrics and their materials and their designs be accepted on the global platform ... it shouldn't be that way," said the British-born Campbell.
Condé Nast International, which publishes Vogue, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The global fashion industry has attracted criticism in the past few years because most models for major designers and fashion houses are white.
"People have come to realise it is not about the colour of your skin to define if you can do the job or not," said the model, adding she had seen signs that the fashion industry was becoming more diverse such as the appointment of Edward Enninful as British Vogue's editor-in-chief in April last year.
The Ghanaian-born Enninful is the first black editor in the publication's 100-year history and the first man to take up the role.
Last week, LVMH's Louis Vuitton brand, the biggest revenue driver at the French luxury goods group, said it had hired Ghanaian-American Virgil Abloh to design its menswear collections.
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Read more:
[ Former British Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman on fashion and the future ]
[ Meet Virgil Abloh, the man designing your next Louis Vuitton ]
[ Hedi Slimane will introduce menswear as new head of Céline ]
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SERIE A FIXTURES
Saturday
AC Milan v Sampdoria (2.30pm kick-off UAE)
Atalanta v Udinese (5pm)
Benevento v Parma (5pm)
Cagliari v Hellas Verona (5pm)
Genoa v Fiorentina (5pm)
Lazio v Spezia (5pm)
Napoli v Crotone (5pm)
Sassuolo v Roma (5pm)
Torino v Juventus (8pm)
Bologna v Inter Milan (10.45pm)
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Company profile: buybackbazaar.com
Name: buybackbazaar.com
Started: January 2018
Founder(s): Pishu Ganglani and Ricky Husaini
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech, micro finance
Initial investment: $1 million
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
57 Seconds
Director: Rusty Cundieff
Stars: Josh Hutcherson, Morgan Freeman, Greg Germann, Lovie Simone
Rating: 2/5