Malala Yousafzai Covers British Vogue July 2021, Lensed by Nick Knight

Malala Yousafzai brings her ultimate activist self to the July 2021 issue of British Vogue. AOC has written regularly about Malala for a decade — since that dreadful day when the Taliban put a bullet in her blogger girl on schoolbus brain in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled Swat Valley.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner wears sustainable designs from Stella McCartney and Gabriela Hearst on the cover and fashion shoot styled by Kate Phelan, then lensed by Nick Knight. McCartney wrote on her Instagram: “Thank you @Edward_Enninful and team for joining us in celebrating all women that stay strong in their truth and fight for equality. x Stella.”

Gabriela Hearst also paid tribute to Malala on Instagram, as she launches her post-Oxford life. Included on the Hearst watch list is Malala’s new media company Extracurricular, a joint venture between the activist and AppleTV.

Like millions more human hearts, we’ve watched Malala survive after being flown to Britain for specialist surgery and life itself. We watched survive and thrive, with each blog post detailing another feather in Malala’s Pashtun headscarf.

With the new fashion editor of the upcoming Vogue Scandinavia Rawdah Mohamed sending the message “Hands off my hijab” on digital media, Yousafzai also addressed the significance of wearing her headscarf in her British Vogue: interview with Sirin Kale.

"It's a cultural symbol for us Pashtuns, so it represents where I come from. And Muslim girls or Pashtun girls or Pakistani girls, when we follow our traditional dress, we're considered to be oppressed, or voiceless, or living under patriarchy. I want to tell everyone that you can have your own voice within your culture, and you can have equality in your culture," she told journalist Kale.

We’re pulling Malala’s entire story to this single spot on AOC. From the moving memoir she published in 2013, to addressing the UN on her 16th birthday, creating the Malala Fund, her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, graduating from Oxford— we have Malala’s story on AOC right here.

Hijabi Activist Rawdah Mohamed Named Fashion Editor of Vogue Scandinavia

Rawdah Mohamed at Vogue Scandinavia

Vogue Scandinavia launches in August 2021, led by editor-in-chief Martina Bonnier. Focused on Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, sustainability will be a key topic for the magazine. Rawdah Mohamed, featured here for Cartier, will be the Fashion Editor.

Grandeur suits Mohamed, Vogue wrote in 2019. At the time the influencer was a healthcare professional working with autistic children. She also signed with a modeling agency but did not receive a warm welcome in Paris, Vogue continues.

“I really wanted [fashion] to be a place where I could just be myself and everyone would just accept me for who I am,” she says. “I was very sad to realize that, no, this is yet another place where I still have to fight to be me and to be able to free to dress however I like and to look however I like.”

Well known for her street style as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, Mohamed, who is also of Somali heritage, believes that her appointment will impact her community. “It has a huge impact for Muslims, and I see this as [a] collective achievement to better understand the world of fashion,” she said.

Rawdah Mohamed via her Instagram

“Vogue Scandinavia has taken the diversity issue to the next step, meaning creating [a] work environment where people of different backgrounds are being valued,” said Mohamed, whose April Instagram post with “hands off my hijab” written on her hand started a campaign that trended on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. “We can participate in conversations, take part in decision-making processes and are able to have an influential voice in fashion.”