The first thing you see before even opening a magazine is the front cover. The cover displays the star of the show- the one who many people aspire to be, or even an icon of perfection. So what if the skin of the cover model does not match that of the reader? Is he or she not as perfect because they cannot change the skin they were born in?

One cannot deny that teenagers across the nation are often swayed by fashion trends displayed throughout the media. This immense influence that the media has on young adults is quite powerful and can even be dangerous, many times leading teens to take drastic measures to conform to the social norm. Teen Vogue is one of those fashion icons that specifically targets a young audience. Its mission statement is that “Influence Starts Here” and as stated by the magazine’s Fashion Market Editor, Mary Kate Steinmiller, in an interview with Arizona Foothills Magazine “when we put the pages of the magazine together we want girls to look at them and WANT to be that girl on the page.”

 In the last 3 years, out of Teen Vogue’s 28 cover stars, only five were people of color. If Teen Vogue wants to be a good influence of empowering girls, then why do its covers lack diversity? How can they expect girls to strive to be like the girl on the page- the image of what perfection looks like to society-when they can’t even change the skin color they were born with? Is that very empowering? The porous minds of the young adults who read Teen Vogue should not be tainted with the feeling that they are not perfect because they are not the same color as the model on the cover.