“What Becomes a Legend Most?” Janet Jackson’s Blackglama Ad

PETA’s gonna kill me for this, but the girl looks good.

(If they wanna know, I personally would prefer a fake or a recycled fur coat.)

And if this is a photo outtake, I wonder what the approved photos look like.

Janet Jackson is the new Blackglama Legend for Fall 2010!

I heard about Janet’s posing for Blackglama in July.

The 44-year-old superstar joins a list of Hollywood elite, such as Audrey Hepburn, Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Liza Minnelli, Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, and Lena Horne, who have starred in the black-and-white ads during the past four decades.

“If someone would have told me later in life that I would be alongside such legendary entertainers, I would have never believed it,” Jackson said in a behind-the-scenes interview at New York City’s Milk studios, where the campaign was produced. “When we did our first shot, that’s what was going through my mind.”

Showing off her newly cropped hair and signature sky-high cheekbones, Jackson wears several all-black ensembles with pieces of black mink, which the star holds up to frame her face in most of the shots.

Of course, this being fur Jackson is wearing, PETA has already issued statements on the matter.

“You told me that you were always aggravated at photo shoots when stylists would try to throw fur on you and that you were even wary of wearing fake fur out of concern that it might actually be real or look real in photos and send the wrong message,” PETA Senior Vice President Dan Matthews wrote to Jackson in a letter obtained by Black Voices.

“You were very straightforward and sensible about it. What happened?”

I know what happened. She needed a career boost; she’s in her mid-forties now; so that principled stand went out the window. It happens. I ain’t hating in this case.

What she could have done was send a note to Matthews stating her reasons why she was joining the Blackglama campaign, but that would have ignited an even more public brouhaha.

I will say that she absolutely looks wonderful. The photographer was Rocco Laspata.

You can find the ads in this month’s Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and W and many other mags. I’d check Essence, too. No, it’s not too late to find one and clip one for a frame.

And if you’re in New York, she’s blown up into one of the ads in Times Square.

~ by blksista on September 13, 2010.