Vogue US November 2010
Anne Hathaway (et al) shot by Mario Testino
In fashion circles there seems to be a bit of a vogue (har har, pun intended i guess) towards reading certain magazines. Edgier fashion tastes tend towards the edgier magazines - the "hip" ones. Unfortunately for me I am neither hip nor edgy, and so I have to settle with plain old Vogue. Why do I love Vogue so much when even I can see that it is falling behind in the stakes of fashion, style and accessibility? Partially it has something to do with the fact that Vogue was the first magazine I bought. It was my entree into the high society of fashion. I couldn't quite believe all that glamour, that glitz. It seemed a world away from the petty high school quibbles and the cheap, mass-produced chain store trash that I was putting on my back. I still remember that feeling of complete... excitement. I'd never been more excited in my life. With every page that I turned there was more loveliness, more frou, more glamour, more beauty. Every word was dripping with that special Vogue brand of exaggeration, elitism and a little dash of humour. I remember being quite, quite charmed by this image of Lily Cole in a Christian Lacroix meringue puff of a wedding dress. I remember thinking.. This is fashion. This is so exciting, it looked like something out of a fairytale.
I can't help but love Vogue, because that's how it all started for me. Yes, it may be a terribly cliche entry into the world of fashion, it may be quite silly and frivolous to get your entry via haute couture and lucinda chambers but I did, and I can't help the fact that even today when I see a shot from Daria's infamous gypsy boho shoot in Vogue UK my heart sings. I can't help but get giddy at the sight of couture and still find some measure of comfort in the old guard of Vogue movers and shakers - Plum Sykes, Bay and Daisy Garnett, Kate Phelan, Lucinda Chambers, Kate Betts and Sarah Mower - whose words and pictures line my walls and are the most resounding images of my fashion education. And when I read a Vogue now there are some magical moments - sometimes - when I get that giddy feeling all over again. It happens when Vogue surrenders to the stereotype and entertains some unabashed, glorious glamour. Vogue UK excels in its December issues, universally resplendent with silver foil lettering and editorials that usually have diamonds as big as the ritz, huge circle skirts, cherry red lips, limbs like pannacotta. Vogue US, despite its ridiculous high society pretensions and inches - no, yards - of pandering to socialites' egos, does glamour better than any other publication. Just be tucking one under my arm I feel like Grace Kelly or Aerin Lauder. So I don't mind picking up the international vogues every month (at exorbitant, exorbitant prices) because they make me happy. Sure, they're not really cutting edge.
But my god, they're beautiful.
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