For Me, By Me

The shoot’s idea came from when I began to look into old magazines for inspiration. However, rather than finding inspiration, I found discomfort. Most of the models were white and whenever women of colour were included they were surrounded by stereotypical props. Playboy was one of the first magazines to have a black cover girl (Darine Stern) in 1971.

Archival Playboy Magazine material. Copyright 1971 by Playboy.

“Years before American Vogue, ELLE, and Harper’s Bazaar had a Black woman grace their cover, Playboy became a maverick. In fact, in 2005, the American Society of Magazine Editors listed this feat as one of the 40 most important magazine covers of the past 40 years.” - Morgan Jerkins. You can read more about Darine Stern here: https://zora.medium.com/what-happened-to-playboys-first-black-cover-girl-25f48b985edb

The entire concept of this project was to create our own “covers” for Playboy. The shoot features Hannah Lawle (@hannahlawle) who modelled and also helped with creative directing. I’ve worked with Hannah many times before, so shooting with her was easier as we both understood each other’s styles and direction. We tried to make the shoots seem classy but also attempted to keep it modern. We shot and planned over the duration of three weeks in July 2019 with the help of a lot of post-it notes and homemade smoothies.

Photography: Ava Brooks (_@sapphosrevenge_)

Words: Ava Brooks / Edited: Halima Jibril

Creative Direction: Ava Brooks and Hannah Lawle

Model: Hannah Lawle