Vogue rattles fashionistas with Kim Kardashian cover

Kim Kardashian and her fiance Kanye West graced the cover of the April issue of American Vogue. (Photo: Vogue)

NEW YORK: Kim Kardashian is on the cover of the next issue of American Vogue, the magazine announced Friday, thrilling the reality TV starlet and unleashing a torrent of Twitter outrage among fashionistas.

Kardashian, 33, appears in a strapless gown in the arms of her fiance, hip hop maestro Kanye West, over the headline: "Kim and Kanye: Their Fashionable Life and Surreal Times" and hashtag #worldsmosttalkedaboutcouple.

On the inside pages, the couple appear in photographs by Annie Leibovitz walking down a desert highway and lounging in a private jet. Their nine-month-old daughter North West also makes a cameo appearance.

"This is such a dream come true!!! Thank you @VogueMagazine for this cover! O M GGGGGG!!! I can't even breath (sic)!" tweeted the star of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" on her @KimKardashian account.

West -- who told an interviewer in 2013 there was "no way" Kardashian shouldn't be on Vogue's cover -- was equally pleased, telling his @kanyewest followers: "#TRILL Thank you @voguemagazine."

Fashion enthusiasts flocked to Twitter as well to challenge the logic of Vogue editor Anna Wintour making a sophisticated cover girl out of a Hollywood celebrity who more regularly appears in downmarket tabloids.

"Hell hath frozen over," tweeted Canadian fashion magazine Flare, while style bloggers Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez said: "This is NOTHING about fashion."

Twitter user @ahDORIble posted that: "The last ounce of respect I had for Anna Wintour and Vogue is officially gone."

The April issue of Vogue, with a "spring chic" theme, hits newsstands on March 31, a week after the release of its digital version.