Vogue Magazine

[Deleted]

Vogue has yet to see the shark in the waters – it remains the most original, sophisticated and modern fashion magazine on the stands.

I used to be besotted with InStyle because I could pour covetously over the pages of pretty things and pretty homes of celebrities. But now every issue is the same – how to apply self-tanner, how to remove body hair, how to organize your closet (tape Polaroids of your shoes to the outside of the box!!!!). I do like the Instant Style section where they put together outfits – something I've noticed other magazines copying (Cosmo & Us). But my love has waned, I'm bored. I can't face another article about which movie stars wear watches/perfumes made by the advertisers.

I used to regard Vogue as out of touch and full of clothes that are mystifying expensive for something so ugly. But I think Vogue has the best writing and best photography (I can't stand Elle's squinchy little photographs). Sometimes I get fed up with the obsession with the skeletal dried-up rich bitches (Aerin Lauder, Daphne Guiness). But I love the profiles for the age and shape issues where they talk to real women who are cool and love fashion and dress to accentuate their features. I like the coverage of fashion designers as creative and artistic people. The articles cover a broad sweep of provoking topics – voting, Afghanistan, AIDS in India. Dodie Kazanhian writes intelligently on art, Jeffrey Steinbarten is genius. I also think they have great access to the most gorgeous homes and estates.

And the fashion spreads are gorgeous – nothing is better than the Dec. 2004 Annie Leibovitz "Alice in Wonderland" spread with Natalia Vodianova. Fantastic and fantastical. The Drew Barrymore piece in the current issue is pretty magical too.

I do reserve the right to hate Robert Sullivan's stuttering writing style & how he repeats himself 5 times in 1 paragraph. In a just world, Plum Sykes would have her mouth taped shut. ALT is pretentious and insufferable – despite the fact that Carrie Bradshaw thinks he's a poet.

But all in all, viva Vogue.

[macarena]

I really hate how they've used the same two models for months on end. Daria Werbowy, I am so sick of her. I agree about the "mid-leap" poses being way overdone. I think the best one in recent memory (aside from the Alice in Wland, which was great) was the one of the model in a gown looking like she'd just come out of a huge packing crate. (I'm moving so I have thrown out all my back issues...)

My favorite part of the mag is their spotlight on horribly expensive resorts in places I will never go, like the Maldives or the Seychelles. Total porn for me.

[foxfair]

Word to everything you just said Bellita. I remember when they used Giselle for issue after issue after issue. I am currently sick of Daria. American Vogue also loves Karen Elson and...oooh, what's her name - the one from Ethiopia (I think) with the Estee Lauder contract? But I don't think they've had a cover to themselves yet. One of the issues from last year featured models posing in their hometown/home country, dressed in local-ish dress and surrounded by local scenes. I liked that a lot. K Elson posed on the beach in Blackpool, in a bikini. It was a great shot, with her pale skin and the grey English seaside.

I agree with cherryames that it's the best of the bunch (DON'T even get me started on how Elle uses the same damn photoshoot issue after issue!) but it's not like the competition is heated or anything. Even though the mag market is saturated I think there is a niche that needs filling re: fashion you don't need to be a millionaire/over 35 to be into without it being completely soul-less and bland like Instyle, which I *loathe*. Lucky has sort of tapped into this but it's too focused on things other than fashion to really do it for me.

[Deleted]

The April Vogue is out; let me look. Anna Wintour is still the editor. Well, only good things come to an end.

Andre is dieting. He fesses up to coverup camouflage with those voluminous gowns that he has been wearing lately. I just thought that he had a fondness for the old Rockerfeller Center Giant Christmas tree skirts from the Vintage XMas store. Andre is six feet seven inches tall and he is on a 1500 calorie a day diet. Will he ever lose those pesky 75 pounds that keep him from his Giant Plaid Checked Tablecloth Suits? Time will tell. Next Month, he will be sucking down Ensures so that he will not be confused with the other bony models at Vogue. Good luck and health, Andre. Call me for bowling.

Devon O'Brien's (who? I don't know either) Mommy was fat. Devon was traumatized by this shame. Devon has issues; but I wouldn't look too closely at Mommy. It sounds like Daddy should be the one that she should write her confessions about.

Now, the Spring Fashions! Karl Lagerfield has heavy eyebrow fetishes. I thought that was Calvin Klein, and he got over it when Brooke Shields reached the legal age. Galliano is obsessed with the French Revolution---only he is not because his designs mimic the Napoleanic Regency of French Empire not the Libertie, Equalitie, and Faternitie of the Reign of Terror. Alas!

Armani has a very pointy model; she has points all up her breast bone and in her shoulders and in her bony ball socket wrists and her pointy adam's apple and I don't want to think about her pointy back bone. But she has bulgy breasts (and a cute hat). Those breasts are so bulgy that they bulge out her topless dress behind her bony upper arm. WTF? That back breast belongs in the Star Jones Reynolds thread.

Vogue embraces all the body shapes of Woman. Grace, you are very short and must own some bars that Anna hangs out in. But Grace, don't let Anna take your picture in that skirt. You look bifurcated and not in a nice way. Anna can get her free drinks elsewhere. Babriela L...whatever; you are curvy? You are a size 8. Size 8 is curvy? Yet elsewhere, Latifah is curvy and she actually is---curvy and volumptuous---and way over size 8.

Drew Barrymore! Lov ya, honey, you look fabulous! Only Chloe Sevigny wore that same Napolean gown in Harper's this month and I saw it in InStyle. You got sloppy seconds there, sweetie.

Another curvy Model---Size 8! Vogue embraces Women of All Sizes Throughout the World! Yeah...

Cameron Diaz is skinny---she has good metabolism! She works out hard to get herself an ass! She surfs and climbs chests of drawers! That's not what they are saying on your thread, honey. They say that your metabolism is a gift of Columbia not God.

Alice Waters! What are you? Sixty? Is that what good eating does for a person? Uh oh, I'm in big trouble. If Chocolate grew in California, would you eat it?

Fred Leighton---please send me a sample of your bracelets. I need three for my right arm and two for my left arm---Tiffany is sending me a watch for that arm, so I have little room left. Hah, Hah! You pick the gem color, Freddie, I trust your judgement.

[genevieve]

Time to put Anna Wintour out to pasture.

[mrsbootsie]

The last Vogue article I read was the one about Melania Knauss and her fugly wedding dress. It was hardly literate and clearly the author fawned all over the fabulousness of Melania. I couldn't even finish it.

[whackets]

Wooooohhooooohhhhhhhooooord. I read that article and felt inadequate. Why? Because I'm not always 'nice' and 'respectful' to people whom I am giving thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars of my boyfriend's money? Actually.........no. Because I ALWAYS try to be respectful to people, whether I buy from them or not. But apparently, if I want to be rich and kept, being nice to designers is an occasional thing, and Melania's consistent good manners is heralded as the second coming of Jackie Onassis salted with a bit of Clara Barton for good measure.

I found Vogue dull in my college years. Lately, with the exception of Mr. Steingarten, I find it hilarious, troubling, and shallow-and having next to NOTHING to do with the idea of fashion, much less couture.

[Deleted]

My heightened Fashion Sense is tingling, alerting me to …. the May issue of Vogue! Let me lick a finger and leaf through its glossy pages.

I look at the Indictments…excuse me, the editorial page, and I wonder why there is no Editor of Really Bad Ideas. I guess no one wants to claim the credit---ah, here we go, the Miss Anna Wintour page! Though you’d never know it was she by her signature (the one written on the page, not the one defacing the magazine), which is very blurry and escapist.

What are Miss Wintour’s key words and phrases for the Merry month of May?

• “general aversion to self-reliance”
• “rigorous and restrained"
• “the smallest egos”
• “insisted that her assistants take the bow for work they had completed”
• “contributions of his (sic, her) teams”
• “devoted much of the past year to getting rehabilitated”

Well, except for the first and last ones, I don’t know where she gets this stuff. It has nothing to do with her.

That last one is about her good friend, Donatello Versace, whom Miss Wintour “visited” during her liberation from pharmaceutical companies and coerced Winery and Distillery Tours. If you think that that “her” pronoun attribution is vague, yes, you are so right. So no drug or booze or bar or clubbing articles, this month in Vague---uh, Vogue, in honor of her abstinence.

Now I must catch up on My Life With André. Not a word about André’s weight loss, unless you count the phrases:

• “Diet Vanilla Coke”
• “A thin-looking Harvey Weinstein was there, in low-slung hipster jeans”.

André, I really don’t want to catch a glimpse of Harvey’s butt crack, no matter how thin he is.
I have the queasy, full feeling that I get after eating half a pound of cheap grocery store chocolates that André is cheatin’. Not a mention of the loss of a pound!

And André has that picture of
Miss Charlize Theron's dress
which resembles those cake dolls that Auntie and Granny wasted their baking talents on. You know, the cakes with the plastic doll torso stuck on top of a hemisphere cake ornately decorated with Ateco tips #3, 5, 9, 34, and 42 ruffles and bows and flowers in buttercream and royal icing.

André is down in the kitchen, late at night, wolfing down that dolly’s dress. André, call me! I will come over and help you eat that dolly! And I will bring milk, 2% milk, in honor of your diet. Yes! We will eat and drink that dolly down!

André is with his new girl, Sophie Okefenokee Swamplands, and they are going to the Oscars! Gosh darn, yessss! Only, “A blight has fallen over the red carpet. Where has all the glamour gone?” I am confused. You are not wearing that red carpet, are you André? And Star Jones Reynolds is not chasing you and clinging to you, is she? Oh good, that is just a horrible dream that we both had! See, André, ESP between you and me!

Sophie Okefenokee Swamplands wants to wear white to the Oscars! Hillary Swank wants to wear white to the Oscars! That Skank Swank Slut! Everyone knows that she is no Oscar Virgin! Yes, she is a blight! Screw her! Well, Oscar did, again!

And now, André reflects on the lack of sparkle on Oscars! night: “No diamonds, thank you very much, due to the controversy surrounding those mined in South Africa.” Good for you, André and Sophie Okefenokee Swamplands. Everyone knows the legend that every time a diamond is mined, a little child in Africa loses his/her hand or foot or arm or leg. No Limbless Children in Africa Because of You!

The model of the month is Gemma Ward. That is good, because Gemma looks like Mommy drank a lot during her gestation period. I like to see a pretty model use her genetic gifts to overcome her stupidity. Don’t we all? And I like Renée Zellweger with red hair. All that red hair balances out her pouty red lips.

Then it is on to one of the great questions of the twenty first century that we have 95 more years to answer or else the seas will rise and the whales will beach. “How the best-dressed stay interested and energized.” I thought that they went drilling in the National Artic Reserve. Silly me!

“Catherine Zeta-Jones knits presents for family and friends. Uma Thurman is becoming a devotee of musical comedy, singing and dancing whenever she can, thanks to her coming role in The Producers. Yvonne Force Villareal has a rock band.”<br>
Well, Yvonne, Julliette Lewis has a rock band and no one ever hears from her anymore. Good Luck with that move. Mel Brooks thanks Uma for the plug (for The Producers not the hair transplant. But it does take a special lady to give her hair for a good role). I don’t understand the Catherine Zeta-Jones reference. Is Michael doing something with sheep? Is he using their glands to stay ever youthful like his wife?

Dana Lorenz is using living room curtain cords for haute couture jewelry. Damn, Martha Steward is in the joint for five months and Miss Lorenz is in K Mart stealing Martha’s home-living design items. Now, you tell me, who is the Bitch?

And Marc Jacobs, those $295 glasses that you designed can be bought at Target for $5 each. Don’t be so greedy with your markup, Marc.

[blondie]

Chatchien, few things magazine-related give me as much enjoyment as your magazine rundowns. Not even getting the Lucky in the mail. Never stop.

[foxfair]

I agree! I almost feel guilty spending money on Vogue now when I can get a thorough recap here, from Chatchien.

I did get the latest issue, however. I thinkGemma Ward is beautiful, one of the most beautiful models at the moment.

And you know - I *liked* those MJ glasses. Too bad for me that I don't have $1000+ to drop on a set of drinking vessels. Wasn't really into the fashion in this issue, and Jeff Steingarten's essay wasn't as juicy and long as usual. Harumph.