The 50th Anniversary Issue of W is an all-out supermodel celebration featuring 17 cover stars ranging from the world’s most famous names to women who are well on their way to total fashion domination. See every cover model here and read Jenny Comita’s essay about the evolution of the beauty standards that define the industry here.

When you look back at the runways you walked in the ’70s and ’80s, they often appear more diverse than many of the fashion shows held 20 and 30 years later. When did you realize that fashion had taken a step backward?

It was 2013 when it became quite evident that there was an absence of Black models in advertising, but more important on the runway. That was the place that they’d always used Black models, and all of a sudden they were completely absent. So my best friend, Bethann Hardison, myself, and Naomi [Campbell] decided that we needed to check what was going on. And what we saw was jarring. When it came to Black models, it wasn’t just less, it was a total absence.

What do you think was behind that shift?

There was one crucial thing that happened at that time. The Eastern European countries started to open, and there was an influx of Eastern European models—and there are no Black Eastern Europeans. There were all these white, teen skinny girls that washed up on the shores of fashion. Also, I think designers wanted to get away from the cult of the supermodel or the cult of identity. A lot of models had become more famous than the…