Doing a photo shoot for Vogue is a very, very big deal, and landing the cover is even bigger.
But we imagine that landing a cover that ends up getting bashed for being offensive and ridiculous isn’t quite as much fun.
Still, that’s the situation Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik have found themselves in presently.
See, Vogue decided to do a feature about gender fluidity, and so they got typically adorable couple Gigi and Zayn to pose for the accompanying photo shoot.
This is the first issue: why not get models who are actually gender fluid instead of one of Taylor Swift’s squad members and the guy who used to be in One Direction?
In the shoot, Gigi wore all kinds of suits, and Zayn wore some clothing items with a floral print, and some with lots of embellishments.
In the interview, she said that she wore his clothes all the time, and he added that he wore hers sometimes, too.
“I like that shirt,” Zayn said about one particular piece in Gigi’s closet. “And if it’s tight on me, so what? It doesn’t matter if it was made for a girl.”
“Totally,” Gigi agreed. “It’s not about gender. It’s about, like, shapes. And what feels good on you that day. And anyway, it’s fun to experiment.”
She also said “If Zayn’s wearing a tight shirt and tight jeans and a big, drapey coat, I mean– I’d wear that, too. It’s just about, Do the clothes feel right on you?”
“With social media, the world’s gotten very small,” Zayn explained, “and it can seem like everyone’s doing the same thing.”
“Gender, whatever — you want to make your own statement. You know? You want to feel distinct.”
And all that is fine. You can wear whatever clothes you want, sure. Do what makes you happy.
But the issue is that being gender fluid isn’t exactly about being a woman and wearing a suit, or being a man who feels cool wearing floral prints.
And Twitter has been doing an A+ job of calling Vogue out for this mess.
“Zayn and Gigi are profiled in this piece on gender fluidity because… they borrow each other’s clothes sometimes?” one person wondered.
Another wrote “My bf and I share t-shirts, that doesn’t mean we are gender fluid. Jeez louise Vogue, all ya had to do was Google the definition.”
As one reasonable Twitter user pointed out, “I believe Vogue should have called it ‘Androgynous’ and not gender fluid. Seems like just an excuse to put them on the cover.”
Violet Chachki, incredible drag queen and winner of season seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race, even got into the debate.
“There’s an entire marginalized community that actually deals with the problems and joys of being visibly queer day to day,” she wrote in a post on Snapchat.
“Ya know people that wear gendered clothing different than the gender they were assigned at birth, not only because it’s cute and fun but as a means of survival.”
Vogue received so much backlash for the issue that they’ve already made a public apology.
“They story was intended to highlight the impact the gender-fluid, non-binary communities have had on fashion and culture,” their statement read.
“We are very sorry the story did not correctly reflect that spirit — we missed the mark. We do look forward to continuing the conversation with greater sensitivity.”
As of now, neither Gigi or Zayn have commented on the controversy.
Do you think Vogue was out of line with this? Sound off below!
