October 13, 2009
It's ironic timing that, just after the issue of race came up at London Fashion Week with PPQ staging an all-black-model runway show, French Vogue is catching heat for a controversial photo shoot with Lara Stone. A 14-page spread for the October issue shows the Dutch model in blackface.
The spread praises Stone for pushing a "radical break with the wave of anorexic models", but as Jezebel points out, that compliment is hard to take when another issue seems to be so blatantly overlooked. October's issue is dedicated to supermodels, and no black models made the cut.
So you be the jury: Did this spread go too far, or is it just another way to push boundaries?
See more images after the jump
July 31, 2009
Grandpa Moe and Sadie Stein
In the final instalment of The Fash Pack's month-long series about first fashion influences, Jezebel writer Sadie Stein pays tribute to her grandfather, a partial hoarder and full-time bargain hunter who gave her the confidence to experiment with style.
Grandpa Moe, with his marked lack of fashion sense and his bottomless curiosity, is one of the most sartorially inspiring gents we've heard about in ages. And if he beat out Faye Dunaway for Stein's top spot? Must have been something significant in those French Resistance-fighter suits and dingy furs.
When I was asked to name my first style influence, my mind went to those women whose style I've admired over the years – Isabelle Adjani, circa-'Locateur'; Sylvia Beach, neat and bookish; Faye Dunaway's '70s career woman in 'Network' – and knew that there was one person I had to name: my grandfather.
To those who didn't know him, this might seem an odd choice. To those who did, it's inexplicable. While my grandfather, Moe, might have been called many things – eccentric, crazy, crackpot – "stylish" was not one of them. He spent his life in a series of flight suits he obtained at the resale shop that gave a discount to ex-military, his shock of white hair perpetually uncombed. And few can forget the period when, after his front teeth fell out, he'd superglue them into his mouth for special occasions.
Read more after the jump
July 20, 2009
In response to Lindsay Lohan's latest (millionth?) attempt to pose as Marilyn Monroe, Jezebel has a question: Why are people so obsessed with recreating an inimitable style? Especially when said style was made famous by a tragic figure forced by movie studios to reinvent herself?
We get that the white-dress picture is legendary, and yes, the girl born Norma Jean Baker was gorgeous. But Baker/Monroe was objectified by those around her and died under suspicious circumstances at only 36. Is it the "live hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" phenomenon that makes her image last? Or is it time that, like Jezebel says, we realise that pretending to be someone else, as Monroe had to do, is exhausting, and learn to be happy with our own icons?
June 30, 2009
Last week we broke the news that, for the first time, ELLE bagged more ad pages than Vogue. When asked about how the magazine's advertising is doing, as they begin to close the big September issue, Vogue's publisher Tom Florio tried to diffuse the situation but actually revealed how bad the situation actually is. "We'll have over 400 pages of advertising," he told the NY Post.
As Jezebel said, 400 pages is a considerable drop from the 727 ad pages they had for the 2007 September issue, and the 607 pages last year.
People are quickly beginning to question whether this is a result of the economy, or whether it shows that Anna Wintour is losing her touch.
What do you think?
