Africa – the continent, the people, the landscape – has been represented in American Vogue for years, from a cover story on Keira Knightly roaming the plains as a 1930s adventurer to a feature on one woman’s efforts to save the continent’s lions. But, will there ever be a Vogue to represent Africa. With 18 editions of the magazine published in countries from India to Australia, one blogger has taken notice that the continent of Africa with all it’s diverse countries has no representation in the world of high-fashion publishing.

All this talk of fashion and Africa begs the question: aren’t there more important issues in Africa to focus on besides the continent’s place in the fashion world? AIDS, famine, lack of clean drinking water, genocide and civil unrest being among them. Or is it because of these issues that a fashion magazine celebrating all that is good about African culture and fashion is absolutely necessary at this time? Both for Africa and the rest of the world. The Vogue Africa covers conceived by Cameroonian photographer Mario Epanya are nothing short of stunning. So, why not?

Really? There are important social issues facing many or all of the countries currently represented in the fashion world by Vogue. Why should Africa be denied it’s own edition of the “the worlds most influential fashion magazine”? Now, the logistics of distributing a fashion magazine to a continent of 1 billion people, 2,000 languages and 53 countries is another story all together.

(Photo via: Jezebel)