vogue india

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Carey Mulligan will sell the gold-and-silver Prada dress she wore to Monday's Met Gala on eBay and will donate the proceeds from the sale to Oxfam America. The auction ends on May 19. Bidding started last night at $500. As of this post, the highest bid was $1,025. [The Cut]
  

• Vogue India will follow in the footsteps of its sister magazines in the United States, Italy, and the UK by establishing a Fashion Fund to support young designers. The magazine wants Indian talent to be able to compete with incoming established Western luxury brands. [Material World]
  

• Andrej Pejic was the only man to be cast in the Rosa Clara show during Barcelona's Bridal Week. Pejic has walked as many men's runways as women's runways and closed Jean Paul Gaultier's Summer 2011 couture show in a tiered wedding dress. [The Huffington Post]
  

• Menswear blogger Lawrence Schlossman says he and friend Kevin Burrows are responsible for the cult Tumblr F*ck Yeah Menswear. Schlossman and Burrows had been running the blog anonymously since October 2010 but stopped posting when they were offered a book deal last November. [The New York Observer]
  

• And finally, because it's Thursday, here's a picture of Karl Lagerfeld's cat Choupette playing with an iPad. [@KarlLagerfeld]

Vogue India is taking a stand against color discrimination within its country with a cover solely dedicated to darker-skinned models. "Skin color matters a lot for women in India," said Nirupama Singh, an expert on the sociology of fashion. "Fairness is a very valuable thing here, looked on as desirable. The fashion world can be a big agent for change in this area."

Titled The Dawn Of Dusk, the cover features five darker-skinned models — including Gia Johnson Singh — hoping to change the country, which currently touts light-skinned stars and models. We think this is a great way to address color prejudice. Hopefully, this will help change India's outlook on beauty and stop kids from buying skin-whitening products.

Source

>> Vogue India has been around just short of a year, but it's already causing uproar.  A spread that appeared in the August 2008 issue, featuring "real" Indian people carrying $10,000 Birkin bags or $200 Burberry umbrellas, is being called "downright distasteful" and an "example of vulgarity" because nearly half of India's population lives on less than $1.25 a day. 

Vogue India editor-in-chief Priya Tanna's responded by standing her ground:

Lighten up . . . Fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful. You have to remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously. We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the world.

The depiction was worsened in critics' eyes because the subjects were not identified by name — the brands of the accessories were identified in the captions, which they then say are worn by a lady or a man.

Vogue India is not the first edition of Vogue to stir controversy this year; In fact, it was reported earlier this year that Si Newhouse, Conde Nast's chairman (and therefore Vogue overseer) delights in the controversies his magazines create. So perhaps — Anna Wintour and Priya Tanna — they were just pleasing their boss.
*image: source