Rihanna poses for Vogue Italia June 2021

Superstar songstress turned fashion designer Rihanna is the cover star of fashion Bible Vogue Italia, edition of June 2021. The fashion issue is the publication's Do It Yourself edition, and the celebrity also features as stylist and photographer for the shoot. Seen on the covers, Rihanna wears ensembles from high-end brand Valentino, and looks fierce and fabulous. For the photo spread, casting direction was done by Piergiorgio Del Moro & Samuel Ellis Scheinman, with project direction from Rihanna and Jahleel Weaver, and creative direction and cover artwork by Ferdinando Verderi. The Barbados based beauty goes natural for the shoot, and poses without any filters, dressed in eccentric best.

In recent years we have tried to use our cover in many different ways: with photography or illustrations, or with no images at all. But we’ve never invited the featured person to do everything by themselves: to pose, take the photographs and choose the clothes to wear. If there was a right occasion for this new experiment, it could only have been the DIY issue. Neither could there have been a better protagonist than Rihanna – who has appeared on so many covers, but never like this time in the version in which she, and only she, has chosen to portray herself, without filters or any mediation. – Emanuele Farneti, Vogue Italia’s editor in chief