Kamala Harris in Vogue, and a nod to the late Katharine Whitehorn

Vogue releases a second Kamala Harris cover in limited print edition following backlash.

The digital cover of Kamala Harris will also be released as a limited-edition print cover following backlash that the original was disrespectful. Picture: Tyler MITCHELL / Vogue / AFP

Is that capitulation we see? From Anna Wintour? The US Vogue editor-in-chief is not known for bowing to popular opinion, but rather for leading the fashion and popular culture bible with her steadfast vision.

Still, it is certainly looking like a backdown from this standpoint.

Following on from the backlash surrounding Vogue’s February cover featuring Vice-President Kamala Harris in an overly relaxed portrait, which many, including The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan, deemed disrespectful, Conde Nast announced that it would release a limited edition print run featuring the more formal photograph that had graced Vogue’s digital cover.

Buzz, for one, enjoyed the wording in this statement from a Vogue spokesperson, skirting around the issue: “In recognition of the enormous interest in the digital cover, and in celebration of this historic moment, we will be publishing a limited number of special edition inaugural issues.”

So, in other words, a capitulation.

Buzz wasn’t alone in being bemused and deflated by the original cover. The relaxed jeans-blazer-trainers-pearls combo was one thing, but the crumpled curtains behind her — their colours representing Harris’s sorority — and her slightly surprised look hardly represented the momentous occasion of the first female and the first woman of colour to hold the office.

During the backlash (but before the announcement of the second cover), Wintour told The New York Times that there was no “formal agreement” over which images would grace the cover, but said that the team agreed unanimously that the chosen one was “accessible and approachable and real”, reflecting hallmarks of the Biden-Harris political campaign.

“Obviously we have heard and understood the reaction to the print cover,” said Wintour, “and I just want to reiterate that it was absolutely not our intention to, in any way, diminish the importance of the vice-president-elect’s incredible victory.”

The original, more casual, US Vogue cover of Kamala Harris. Picture: Tyler Mitchell/Vogue/AFP

The digital — and now limited edition — cover sees Harris in a much sleeker blue Michael Kors suit, with golden drapes behind her. She still appears approachable and relaxed, but also proud and ready to take on the job from early Thursday morning Australian time.

Both photographs were taken by Tyler Mitchell, who had become the first black photographer to land a cover of US Vogue just three years ago, featuring Beyonce.

Whether there was any political interference in the latest decision is unknown. Harris has not made a public comment on the covers, although sources say she was surprised at the choice between the two.

Perhaps we should leave the last word on the subject to Harris, however, from the Vogue article that runs in the magazine. She’s speaking about the rally at which she and then president-elect Joe Biden gave their victory speeches, but it has broader significance than that.

“It was very important for me to speak to the moment,” said Harris, “and the moment includes understanding that there is a great responsibility that comes with being a first.”

And as Wintour should have noted at the outset, there is also a responsibility in respectfully representing the first female US vice-president on the cover of US Vogue.

Of course, from Thursday, Harris will herself face a whole new cycle of wardrobe dissection as Vice-President, starting with her inauguration outfit. Here’s hoping that very soon we’ll be talking only about policies, not pearls.

Kindred spirit

Someone once told Buzz that you should never tell people what you don’t know. Someone else said that the older you get, the less you realise you know. As someone who celebrated a significant birthday last year, Buzz is certainly realising the latter to be true.

As to the former, while embarrassing to admit, this week Buzz discovered a gaping hole in her knowledge, which was only unearthed upon reading the recent obituary for one Katharine Whitehorn. The British newspaper columnist and one-time fashion editor died aged a resounding 92, and from the obituaries alone, Buzz is now on a one-woman mission to track down all her published tomes.

She made her name in a 1963 column in which she described herself as a slut — not of the promiscuous variety (not that there would be anything wrong with that, either), but of the slatternly persuasion. Her quote in point: “Have you ever taken anything back out of the dirty clothes basket because it had become, relatively, the cleaner thing?”

Buzz, whose off-duty/at-home default setting is “slob”, immediately felt Whitehorn to be something akin to a kindred spirit.

While she was largely known as a confessional columnist and later an agony aunt during an almost six-decade career (in the 1950s she even modelled for a series on loneliness), during her time as fashion editor of The Observer she declared another mission: “I was filled with a crusading zeal to get the British woman out of that limp cardigan at all costs.”

Here’s to Whitehorn’s long life, well lived, and a new generation of readers to enjoy her deliciously pragmatic advice.