Superstar Beyonce is featured on the cover of French magazine L’Officiel Paris, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. The theme running through the March issue is “African Queen” and also pays tribute to Nigerian musician and human rights activist Fela Kuti.
Instead of just choosing a dark-skinned African model to represent the “African Queen”, Beyonce was chosen, and the editorial team also thought it would be “artistic” to darken her face.
Read below an excerpt from the magazine article.
The Fashion magazine is about to celebrate its 90th birthday. To celebrate this anniversary, the festivities start with the March issue, with Beyoncé on the cover. She agreed to pose for an incredible fashion shoot, with the theme of African Queen, paying a tribute to the legendary Fela Kuti. Far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce, the beauty posed for the magazine with amazing fashion designers clothes, but also in a dress created by her mother. [It is] A return to her African roots, as you can see on the picture, on which her face was voluntarily darkened. All the pictures will be available in the collector edition, on sell at the end of this month.
It is a return to her African roots, as you can see on the picture, on which her face was voluntarily darkened.
So let me get this straight… agreeing to pose with black boot polish on her face, wearing leopard print and a head wrap is a return to her African roots???? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha – hilarious!
Artistic or just your usual mainstream fashion magazine antics? Your thoughts please…..
Categories: News
MAD NEWS UK 
MMMMM… WHY DOES SHE NEED TO DARKEN HER SKINTONE TO LOOK LIKE AN AFRICAN?
AFRICA IS CONTINENT AND WE COME IN VARIOUS SIZE, SHAPE, COLOR, BEAUTY ETC…
I AM ALWAYS AMAZED HOW FEW PEOPLE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AFRICA ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO HAVE AFRICAN BLOOD IN THEM.
IN THAT CASE SHE SHOULD HAVE MADEE HER NOSE LOOK WIDER BECAUSE WE KNOW, ALL AFRICANS HAVE WIDE NOSE.LOL!
@ nubiahbella_I agree.
She looks great as she’s, by darken her skin they collaborate with the nonsense that most black people hold on to, they consider light skin make you less black than a dark skin person. I believe black is black despite the skin tone like you said we come in various size, shape and color.
I saw this over the weekend. I feel that the pics without blackface were good as is. How amazing she looks with the big head tie. I noticed the mag makes a point of saying she voluntarily chose to do blackface. Tyra Banks had all her contestants on ANTM do blackface and not much roar came from that shoot.
I am im two minds as the shoot is meant to honour an African great, but defo did not need the darkned face to pay homage.
Uh huh?!
Wait a minute…. So to honour a well known African musician and political activist,this b*tch from America thought it’d be a marvellous idea to polish her face black??! What a strange way to honour someone. Why couldn’t she just honour him like a normal person?! Beyonce has been to Africa PLENTY of times so i’m not sure why she thought this was such a brilliant idea of portraying OUR women. She’s reduced our women to animal print, head wraps and skin colour. I’m from Zimbabwe and down there we don’t wear such! Nobody in Africa wears such crap. I find this HIGHLY offensive. Why are black celebrities always trying to p*ss us off?? Why doesn’t she do this crap at Nelson Mandela’s concerts? Jay Z needs to start giving PROPER advice to his woman,idiot.
Thanks for the post !
L’OFFICIEL is very proud to present its March issue featuring Beyoncé in African-inspired dresses and jewelry by top designers, including Gucci, Azzedine Alaia, Fendi, Pucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Rodarte, Dolce & Gabbana, Cartier and Lanvin. Designer Tina Knowles, who is also Beyoncé’s mother, created a one of a kind couture piece. The designs are all reflective of the African influence on fashion this season. Miss Knowles poses with royal allure. A queen, a goddess, Beyoncé is a bombshell beauty with a divine voice. We’re thrilled she’s opening a season of celebrating the 90th anniversary of L’Officiel de la Mode. The series was conceived as using art and fashion in paying homage to African queens.
Beyoncé mentioned the artist Fela Kuti in the interview as one of her musical inspirations. It was later misquoted as the inspiration for the shoot. We would like to clarify that it is not the case. As for the artistic makeup, the inspiration came from several African rituals during which paint is used on the face. We find the images beautiful and inspiring.
L’Officiel would like to thank Beyoncé for her outstanding contribution to this celebration of African influences in Fashion.
The older Beyonce gets, the more confusing she becomes.
Why didn’t they just use a dark skinned woman to begin with, there are plenty of good looking dark skinned women around? No, this simply goes back to this:
Let us not be fooled by PR(which is really propaganda), we know exactly what this is all about, yet again, another racist jab at the so called Negro, but did we expect any other behaviour from Edom?
To Post #6, what are the African influences on fashion? Animal prints? I would love to see the fashion world one day show our boubous, geles, etc as African fashion instead of animal prints. Why is it that the wild animals always take precedence over the rich culture and beautiful, warm, hospitable people of Africa? If Beyonce wanted to honor Fela, I would have loved to see her in a beautiful woven Yoruba (Fela’s ethnic group) Asoke outfit or even a rich Ghanaian kente. You only have to go to Dakar, Lagos, Accra to see our women in the most elegant of African dresses.
Verbs is slipping. On top of that they get her to pose in the left picture in the Baphomet position. Take a look at the similarities:
http://sunandshield.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/baphomet1.jpg?w=300&h=387
@L’OFFICIEL Mode
I’m happy to see you thought this post important enough for you to comment on but its a shame you did not address any of the valid points that were made by readers on here. The fact that putting what looks like cheap boot polish on Beyonce’s face to encourage some kind of affinity to the continent of Africa and its peoples is quite frankly something that should not be easily accessible to the masses in 2011. Its derogatory and offensive and I understand that Beyonce voluntarily did this shoot but I think we’re all sane human beings here and can see that you chose to include the word ‘voluntarily’ in your excerpt explaining the reasoning behind shoot because you knew there would an adverse reaction to the photos and wanted to deflect the responsibility of fair representation to Beyonce. I want to add here that Beyonce is equally and perhaps even more to blame than yourselves of how misguided your magazine and her judegment was to allow this shoot to be executed in such a way. I’m sure Beyonce is very aware of the place that wearing ‘black face’ has in African American history of which she is a direct descendent and is staking her place in; rightfully, stereotypically or wrongly.
You have achieved growing the brand awareness of your magazine to a larger market for the wrong reasons but I bet some uninspired PR that works for you said that ‘all publicity is good publicity’ – its not.
Lastly, if you actually have a positive interest in Africa and its people, why not actually employ them to help you put together a shoot? Its quite obvious that the people you had working on the shoot can easily be replaced due to the lack of the innovation they showed on a subject that’s so rich in possibilities. They were lazy and reverted to overused stereotypes of which have no place in 2011, no matter how many Black participants you may get interested in playing that role.
My gift to you is the following: ‘must try harder next time’.