Glossed Over

Allure: With Looks Like This, Who Needs a Brain?

Allure’s “Beauty Reporter,” September, gets caught up in the back-to-school spirit of autumn and confirms our suspicions that, were this magazine an actual person, we would never be friends. For instance:

In high school, we called the kid with all the answers a brownnoser. In beauty, we call that person a freakin’ genius.

And:

We hadn’t contemplated Newton’s law of gravity since high school—until we started to notice its effect on our face.

Despite what we were told during the dark days of ninth grade, some things never change.

InStyle: Sorry, Scarlett and Keira Were Busy

From InStyle’s “The World’s Gone Mini,” September:

…Marley Shelton is a maxi girl in a mini world. The 32-year-old actress, who has reached a certain stature in movieland…

“A certain stature”? We take that to mean “no stature except for that granted by repeatedly appearing in magazines,” because otherwise there would be no reason to explain exactly how famous she is in such nebulous terms. No one ever refers to Reese Witherspoon having achieved a “certain stature.”

There aren’t a lot of ways to describe someone who, like Ms. Shelton, is nearly anonymous despite having amassed more than 40 film and television credits and yet still justify her presence in a fashion spread. If they can’t call her famous, calling her something vague and indefinite is apparently the only way to go. 

Short of booking someone legitimately famous for the shoot, that is.

Photo courtesy of DailyCeleb.com

Spite Always In Style at W

We’re almost impressed by his bitchiness. In September’s “The Month in Fashion,” W’s associate editor, Marc Karimzadeh, slams both Madonna and petite women. (Full disclosure: We have no great affection for Esther, but we are definitely on the short side.)

First, his take on Madonna’s campaign for trendy clothing chain H&M:

Madonna has long been a fan of designer labels like Versace, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and her perennial favorite, Jean Paul Gaultier…But as she proved with her 2003 ads for the Gap, when a paycheck is proffered, the Material Girl is more than happy to slip into less pricey material.

Meow! Good thing she did that bizarre horse-themed spread (and cover, shown here) in W months ago, long after the Gap commercials and way before she sold out again by endorsing clothes her fans can actually afford. We wouldn’t want someone like Madonna to sully the ultra-high-fashion W by doing anything weird like, oh, wearing tracksuits or posing naked with a stallion.

Oh, wait, she did appear unusually close to a horse in the pages of this very magazine. But that was art, right?

And then Marc—who, we surmise, is having a bad month—turns his poison pen on a specific segment of Saks customers. Worth noting: the item, which discusses Saks Fifth Avenue’s decisiuon to discontinue its petite department, is titled “Little Women.” Gag.

Saks Fifth Avenue learned a valuable lesson this year: Don’t forget the little people…When faced with the angry little women, the big retailer backed down.

Referring to “angry little women” is the verbal equivalent of a dismissive pat on the head.   It’s like he’d prefer that anyone with the audacity to be too short to walk a Paris runway be confined to a life of ill-fitting clothing. What, are petite women taking up too much of his tailor’s attention?  Does he have some personal vendetta against short people who, we should add, lack height through no fault of their own?

Not that we’re very bitter. In fact, we’re rather amused by this fashion-world cattiness.  We just hope that next time he lashes out, he does so on a broader series of targets.  Imagine the scandal (and sudden lack of financial viability) that will ensue when a major magazine throws a barb at every store, celeb, and designer in its pages!  We can hardly wait.

Goodbye and Good Riddance to Shop

We’re a little late on this, but we couldn’t not acknowledge that Hearst has decided to cease publication of Shop Etc. after the forthcoming October issue.

Of course, we can’t say we’re surprised. Why pay $3.49 an issue for a magazine whose design and photography pale in comparison to the free J. Crew catalog?

Still, we’re holding on to a tiny shred of hope that editor-in-chief Mandi Norwood will explain the meaning of “Etc.” in the last issue.  Please, Mandi, don’t leave us hanging.

Cosmo: What? Men and Women Talk?

It’s settled.  Those letters asking for advice and insight from experts cannot possibly be real.

Our proof?  Page 88 of September’s Cosmopolitan. The piece, “Paging the Love Doctor,” promises much.

Answers to your most probing questions about celeb relationships from Beverly Hillspsychotherapist Bella Dishell.

As if the concept of people writing to a magazine to ask “probing questions”about the relationships of people they don’t even know isn’t mind-boggling enough, we should clarify here that readers aren’t asking remotely factual questions like, “Assuming they are engaged, what kind of ring did Vince Vaughn buy for Jennifer Aniston?”  Nope, they’re asking speculative nonsense like this about the two.

After her divorce, Jennifer Aniston said that Vince Vaughn made her laugh and feel safe.  Why do women like funny guys?

Does the letter-writer hail from a bizarro backwards planet where a sense of humor is actually a detriment on the singles scene? Does such a place even exist? We find it hard to believe that anyone anywhere would need to question the desire for a funny partner.

Sure, Cosmo often almost exclusively emphasizes the physical aspects of relationships over those pesky talking parts of a partnership. But this letter is over-the-top evidence that these supposed reader-submitted questions are probably just generated by interns with nothing better to do.  That, or Cosmo readers really are as single-minded about sex as the magazine’s content indicates. 

Bazaar: Fashion Tips for the Validation-Starved

As if it wasn’t bad enough to put the pretentious Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover (and there’s the article, “The Real Gwyneth,” which we refuse to read lest we vomit) and pose the evening gown-clad Denise Richards at a grocery store (and a playground and a gas station, all in a vain attempt to make us believe she’s totally normal and average, just wealthier and more beautiful than the rest of us), September’s Bazaar also had to tackle a a completely irrelevant matter.

Could You Get a Date in These Clothes?

Fashionable ladies, steel yourselves: One alpha male gives his opinion on the new covered-up style.

Oh, did we miss a memo?  Since when is it okay to suggest we dress to please men, most of whom don’t know the difference between Banana Republic and Bebe?  Bazaar is brazenly reinforcing the outmoded idea that women should cater to men’s ideas of attractiveness. 

Besides, even O’Brien acknowledges it’s moot.  He realizes women don’t select their clothes to attract a mate.

We [men] know that women don’t dress for us; they dress for each other.

Then tell us again, Glenn, why a man’s opinion—your opinion—on our wardrobe should carry any weight at all.   

Jane Uses "S-E-X" Three Times on Cover In Attempt for Record

This month in Jane:

How Classy Girls Have Naughty Sex

Which leads us to wonder:

Why Smart Women Buy This Magazine

And then we remembered: They don’t.

Some 29-year-olds, however, do write to Jane for help with losing their virginity. We rest our case.

September Self Confused, Thinks It's TV Guide

From Self’s “15 Minutes to Your Best Self,” September:

Got 9 minutes? Prep for the new season of Lost

How entirely unhelpful—an entire season of TV’s most convoluted drama boiled down to three-quarters of a page of pretty pictures.  Reading this glorified listicle will do nothing to clarify the mysteries of the island, like who’s behind the Hanso Foundation and why the hatch has a modern washer and dryer, though the piece does provide some eye candy.  Mmm, Boone.  (Remember when he was alive?)  But who exactly are the Others?  Who knows?  We’ve watched every episode—albeit only once—and we’re still completely, er, lost.

But Self doesn’t offer any insight either.  Time saved with this feature: zip. 

Even if the piece did contain enough information to actually be informative, we refuse to believe that knowing “the beach is home base”—no, really, they said that—will lead us on the path to enlightenment.   If we’re looking for self-improvement, we’re not going to find it watching network television programming, and it’s utterly ludicrous to even suggest that studying a TV show summary constitutes any kind of advance. 

On the other hand, if Self continues to publish useless show wrap-ups, we could save a lot of time…by not reading the magazine and just watching TV instead.  That’s something we’d consider an improvement.

Editor's Note: We Need a Nap

This week we’ve been fighting an epic battle of wills: should we sleep (oh, sweet slumber!) or mock Kate Hudson’s comments in Allure? Hit the snooze button or ponder why Lindsay Lohan is on yet another magazine cover? Close our eyes and rest or widen our eyes in horror at the prospect of Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of Bazaar?

You can guess what’s won.

We’ll be back to normal soon. Now, about these dreams we’ve been having…

Self Offers Unbiased Beauty Tips, Hope to Easily Duped Readers

From Self’s “Notes to Self,” August:

I wish I looked as good as Rebecca Romijn after a dip. Can you suggest a mascara that will stay put?

This letter, from reader Nancy Lee of Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, is accompanied by a photo of Rebecca Romijn in full diving regalia—is that a knife strapped to her thigh?—tugging an inflatable boat out of the waves.

Hey, Nancy?  We hate to shatter your illusions, but Rebecca Romijn didn’t actually dive into the ocean in full makeup for this photo shoot. What you see in Self is not an accurate representation of any kind of acquatic activity, unless you consider standing knee-deep in the waves with a photographer, makeup artist, stylist, and a dozen other people nearby to count as an athletic endeavor.

Besides, if you’re going to covet something about the model/actress’s appearance, is it really something as easily attainable as her eyelashes?  Apparently, Romijn’s glossy lashes can be had with just a simple swipe of the $7 Revlon mascara Self recommends. And never mind the specious placement of a Revlon ad on the facing page. Really. We’re sure it’s just a coincidence—you know, the same way Self just happened to capture Rebecca Romijn’s return from a deep-sea diving expedition on film.