CeleBeauty Watch: Joan Smalls & Bad Bunny Cover Vogue Mexico & Latin America April 2020

The number one model in the world, Joan Smalls covers the April 2020 Vogue Mexico & Latin America with fellow Puerto Rican  Bad Bunny, the newly crowned king of Reggaeton. Smalls speaks about the issues she faced in the beginning of career.

 “I came to an industry that immediately pigeonholed me. They saw me as the Afro-descendant model – not even as a mix– they saw me as the black girl. They didn’t see my different layers; That of being Latina or that of being of African descent, they only saw me from the outside. At the time there was no inclusion, I had to push myself to make a change and say, ‘I am much more than just this.’ Whenever they referred to Latin, I was last seen by my skin tone . I was always caught up in the specter that my skin was too light to be black but too dark to be Latina. Now, everyone uses the term ‘Afro-Latin’ but when I started that it didn’t exist.” ~ Joan Smalls

Photographed by Gorka Postigo

Photos courtesy of Vogue.mx