Fashion magazine hits out at Trump - with plea to Ivanka

NEW YORK • It is not often that foreign publications wade into the thicket of an American presidential election and accuse a candidate of misogyny and hate speech. It is even rarer for a foreign fashion magazine to do so.

But for its July issue, the editor-in-chief of the Mexican and Latin American edition of Marie Claire has climbed atop her glossy soap box with a cover story directed at Ms Ivanka Trump - and, obliquely, her father, Mr Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

In bold cover type, the magazine pleads: "Dear Ivanka. When will you protect us from your father?" And inside, essay writers beg: Do something. Talk to him. Stop him.

The issue includes letters from journalists, academics and artists, all of them Latin American, some of them living and working in the United States. They attempt to appeal to Ms Trump as a mother, as a businesswoman, as an educated woman, as someone who, having converted to Judaism, might have particular insight into the history of religious persecution and how it festers and grows.

In her opening letter to readers, editor Daniela Von Wobeser writes: "I'd like to ask you, from the bottom of my heart, if supporting your dad's strategy is the best thing for you, as a woman, or the best for your country, and, consequently, mine... Dear Ivanka, do you think your father would be the leader America deserves? Do you think the values your dad promotes are the ones you want... your three children to inherit?"

In bold cover type, the July issue of the Mexican and Latin American edition of Marie Claire pleads: "Dear Ivanka. When will you protect us from your father?" PHOTO: MARIE CLAIRE

Ms Lorenza Amigo, who describes herself as a Mexican-born freelance writer and housewife living in Chicago, writes: "Don't you think that Trump's comparison to Hitler, made several times in media, is enough to raise a red flag? Do you want to be part of this hate campaign, to be remembered in history as that hypocrite who preferred to overlook and allow such atrocity?"

Fashion magazines have long addressed social and cultural concerns. Ms Von Wobeser reminds her readers that a founder of Marie Claire France was involved in petitioning the Vatican to reconsider its stance on contraception.

On politics, fashion magazines are, however, usually mindful that partisanship can cost them readers. But Mr Trump - and outrage - may be good for circulation.

WASHINGTON POST

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on June 26, 2016, with the headline Fashion magazine hits out at Trump - with plea to Ivanka. Subscribe