This September, Essence Magazine welcomes Serena Williams as the cover of their global fashion issue.
Y’all know Serena needs no introduction. The cover story, The Future of Serena Williams, has a bit of everything for us Black girls. The beauty of the cover gives us everything, from face paint by artist Laolu, to dazzling fans in designers such as Carolina Herrera, Giuseppe Zanotti, Talbot Runhof, Issey Miyake.
The vision was inspired and came through photographer Kwaku Alston and ESSENCE Fashion Director Marielle Bobo. “We are beyond ecstatic to have Serena Williams—one of the most photographed women on the planet— to be the muse for our September Global Fashion issue,“ said ESSENCE Chief Content & Creative Officer MoAna Luu. “This issue promises to be one of ESSENCE’s biggest with a fresh new redesign. We also brought the best Black creatives in the world—including visual artist Láolú, who gave us Serena’s stunning face painting for the cover—to present all of the stunning visuals that you see.”
Of course, Serena loves fashion and has found a way to explore it as an entrepreneur and designer. “Wow. I love fashion, obviously. It has to connect to me, first of all,” she told Essence. “I like things that are unusual, but also a little classic. It depends: It could be a crazy pop of color, and it’ll totally get me excited. Or it could be something fresh I haven’t seen before. Honestly, I can go in any direction. Just depends on how I feel…”
“Everything that’s on the runway will be ready for sale for 24 hours on September 10th. As far as the clothing, we really wanted to have fun and be confident. It’s kind of like all the aspects of my life. But not just my life, most women’s lives. We have a job, or we have somewhere to go for an event, or we have something more serious that we wanted to dress down for, or we might want to go out with our friends and relax, or we may just be walking around the house as a mom. So when we were designing the collection, we wanted to speak to every aspect of that woman…” All we know is that whatever Serena steps up to, she will not only succeed, but hold the door open for the rest of us.
The groundbreaking September issue of ESSENCE hits newsstands on August 16th. For more on this story, visit ESSENCE.com.
