Rose Cordero makes French Vogue cover!

[caption id="attachment_2057" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Photo credit: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for French Vogue"][/caption]

Dominicana Rose Cordero is on the cover of the new edition of French Vogue!

Not only is this her first Vogue cover but it marks the first time since 2002 that a black model was the sole cover model for French Vogue. The last one to get that 'honour' was Liya Kebede. Noemie Lenoir also had the cover of  French Vogue in June 2008 but she was one of two covers - the other cover was a white model - Laetitia Casta.

Great company to be in and good for Rose! She looks absolutely beautiful - very vulnerable and soft, which is interesting because Rose's angular features are often played up in a very 'strong' way.

Not so great for French Vogue though - really eight years between solo black cover girls? Do better.

New islandistas @ New York Fashion Week

[caption id="attachment_2001" align="aligncenter" width="395" caption="New islandistas on the catwalk (from left) Sedene Blake, Reina Montero and Chrishell Stubbs"][/caption]

 New York Fashion Week (Fall/Winter '10) started on Thursday and so far it's been pretty good, islandista-wise. 

For the last NYFW (SS '10) we counted 10 islandista models (and one islandisto in the form of yaadie Tyson Beckford) walking the runways for 22 different designers. 

Thus far, the count is at the same 11 (including those new faces we're going to tell you about) for 19 designers so far.  

The expected names have been out there - Jamaica Jeneil Williams walked for Costello Tagliapietra, Dominican Arlenis Sosa walked for Nicole Miller and fellow Dominican Rose Cordero walked for ... everyone - we've counted six shows so far, including Doo.Ri, Jason Wu and Ruffian. 

Alongside new Sudanese-Australian wunderkid Ajak Deng, Rose has been the busiest black or brown model out there. 

However, one islandista newcomer is matching Rose so far, show for show. Read on for more.

Rose Cordero channels Grace Jones in Paris Vogue

Many black models (and some wannabe arm candy-turned models) have tried but few have truly managed to carry off the numerous Grace Jones tribute fashion editorials that fashion mags are so fond of.

[caption id="attachment_1812" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Photo credit: Paola Kudacki/Paris Vogue"][/caption]

But Rose Cordero comes pretty close in the latest issue of Paris Vogue.

Islandistas working the runways at New York Fashion Week

Islandistas, do you know what's in style this season?

ISLANDISTAS!

That's what.

Maybe it's just us, but we are definitely seeing changes in the colour of the catwalks of New York Fashion Week. As you would know we have been tracking this for some time and the last season (Fall/Winter 09) definitely looked more colourful than it had in ... ever?

And it seems the trend is continuing. We have been poring through style.com to get an idea of how models of colour are being represented and thus far, we are pleased to report that out of the 32 collections we've reviewed thus far, all but four designers have included models of colour.

The four offenders so far are Preen, William Rast, Lyn Devon and Helmut Lang - though Lang might get a bligh since he only used two models and one was the Asiatic looking Russian Ranya Mordanova.

Anyway, these more colourful catwalks have been a boon to Caribbean models and there are islandistas all over New York Fashion Week. Honestly, we  have never seen so many.

And what is interesting is that it is not just the more familiar faces like Arlenis Sosa and Jeneil Williams that we are seeing popping up.

Check out more pics and the info on their island connections after the jump.