Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte became just the fourth male celebrity to cover Vogue with his June appearance alongside athletes Serena Williams and Hope Solo. Before him there was Richard Gere, who appeared with then girlfriend Cindy Crawford in November of 1992, George Clooney, who starred alongside Gisele in the June 2000 issue, and LeBron James, who also posed with Gisele in April of 2008.
Gere and Crawford of course made sense as they were Hollywood’s golden couple at the time. The same can be said of James who appeared on the cover of the annual Shape-Issue, though the shots by famed photog Annie Leibovitz drew criticism for what some perceived to be racist undertones. The one that doesn’t really make sense is Clooney, who at the time has only been off ER for one year and was not the A-list star he is today.
It will be interesting to see how this Olympic issue sells. James’ issue at the time was the magazine’s worst selling April in seven years, moving just 350,000 copies off newsstands, but the following month cover girl Gwyneth Paltrow sold even less with 310,000 copies. Stats for how Clooney and Gere’s covers sold were a bit more difficult to dig up.
The one great thing about the current cover is it comes right on the heels of Vogue‘s announcement that they were kicking off a new “health initiative”, aimed at curbing eating disorders and featuring healthy models. No one is more healthy than these three.
Enjoy the men of Vogue above and get ready for another dude to grace the cover sooner rather than later, the previous eight year gap between appearances has now been cut down to four.
