Deep Beauty
Beauty is only skin deep
Caster Semenya's cover picture has broken with the traditional glamour magazine look, causing a stir on social media and prompting Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula to tweet: "Big ups Elle for capturing our Caster in her true form. Confident - Inspirational."
Editor Emilie Gambade said the cover was a return to the magazine's core values.
"Fashion and beauty are a big part of what we do but Elle is also about women in society. When it started, in France in 1945, it was created to be the voice of women after the war.
"In those difficult times it was about giving women a safe space in which to express themselves. It was the place where I learned about feminism, reproductive rights and all the things that women have fought for, for many years."
Gambade said the picture, shot by renowned photographer Jodi Bieber and styled by Elle fashion director Tarryn Opel, was intended to show Semenya as she is and not as a typical fashion model.
"[Some say] that black women don't sell covers, local covers don't sell, and so forth. We weighed the risk with all of them.
"It's not your usual fashion image with a posing model, but for me fashion images can be a lot more than the cliche and I think this is still a very strong fashion image."
Semenya appeared to be thrilled with the cover, posting the picture on her Facebook page with the caption: "Smile at them ... It kills them to see you happy."
Gambede described the Semenya interview as "humbling and inspiring".
"Not only is she a lesbian in a patriarchal society, she's vocal about it.
"When I asked her how she dealt with all the controversy leading up to the Olympics, Caster said: 'It's all noise. I shut it out'.
"She's got incredible will power, and that should be inspiring. She made me feel proud to be a woman, and to want to be stronger and stand with my chin up."
"Fashion and beauty are a big part of what we do but Elle is also about women in society. When it started, in France in 1945, it was created to be the voice of women after the war.
"In those difficult times it was about giving women a safe space in which to express themselves. It was the place where I learned about feminism, reproductive rights and all the things that women have fought for, for many years."
Gambade said the picture, shot by renowned photographer Jodi Bieber and styled by Elle fashion director Tarryn Opel, was intended to show Semenya as she is and not as a typical fashion model.
"[Some say] that black women don't sell covers, local covers don't sell, and so forth. We weighed the risk with all of them.
"It's not your usual fashion image with a posing model, but for me fashion images can be a lot more than the cliche and I think this is still a very strong fashion image."
Semenya appeared to be thrilled with the cover, posting the picture on her Facebook page with the caption: "Smile at them ... It kills them to see you happy."
Gambede described the Semenya interview as "humbling and inspiring".
"Not only is she a lesbian in a patriarchal society, she's vocal about it.
"When I asked her how she dealt with all the controversy leading up to the Olympics, Caster said: 'It's all noise. I shut it out'.
"She's got incredible will power, and that should be inspiring. She made me feel proud to be a woman, and to want to be stronger and stand with my chin up."
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