This Is Why Italian Vogue Isn’t Publishing Photos This Month

This month, every page on Vogue Italia that normally would’ve featured a photo shoot—an editorial, a feature, the cover story—are illustrated by artists and absolutely no photo shoot production “was required in the making of this issue,” writes Emanuel Farneti, Italian Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief on their Instagram. 

The magazine is making a big push towards sustainability in the fashion industry, beginning with their special January issue. After all, everything needed to produce one issue of the magazine—specifically the traditionally hefty September issue—leaves a massive carbon footprint. Farneti enumerates: 

“One hundred and fifty people involved. About twenty flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours nonstop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras …”

The issue features illustrations by Vanessa Beecroft, an Italian multimedia artist; Milo Manara, an erotic comic artist; and Cassi Namoda, a Mozambique-American painter, among others. Notable is Namoda’s work—a depiction of model Ambar Cristal Zarzuela crying, with a mosquito dripping blood near her, representing global warming, according to the magazine, further making statements on climate change and environmental issues. 

Vogue Italia’s stories this month focus on ways to become sustainable, including recycling clothes and reducing waste in garment manufacturing. Furthermore, Farneti has said that his magazine will “be among the first of Condé Nast’s international publications to use 100 percent compostable plastic wrapping.”

According to the Huffington Post, the money saved from not producing photo shoots in this issue will go to Fondazione Querini Stampalia, a historic house and museum in Venice that was damaged in the floods in November—the highest tide the city had seen in over 50 years, due greatly to climate change.

Photos from @vogueitalia