Lucky Admits Defeat, Lets Readers Write the Captions

We’re concerned about the mental welfare of the staff of Lucky, and not just because of that strange belt they stuck on poor Rachel Bilson on the March cover. No, apparently the entire masthead is suffering from a rare but serious illness known as “caption dementia,” which is not quite the same as thinking the editors are demented after reading their captions. (Besides, for us the sensation is usually more akin to rage.)

Kim France has the details in the “Editor’s Letter.”

It is always unusually fun for us to put together our March issue, one of the most fashion-packed of the year. But it is also our unique torture because loads of fashion means loads of text!

“Loads of text,” relatively speaking, of course. This issue does have more words than the Anthropologie catalog!

And for those of us involved in the writing and editing of this text, that leads to something known to us as caption dementia, and—while it has not yet appeared in any of the diagnostic manuals—the condition is very, very real indeed.

Oh, we’re convinced.

It sets in after one has struggled with a new way to describe that 16th peep-toe slingback in the shoe guide without repeating any other adjectives already in the shoe guide or employing any of the words I’ve banned (“yummy” or “delicious” for anything that’s not food, for example).

But “sturdying” (page 200) is okay as a descriptor.

She goes on to chronicle how dedicated the Lucky staffers are. They wake up in the middle of the night, dreaming about captions. They go out in public and practice writing captions about the women who walk by. Basically, they suffer an awful lot for their “art.”

And now they want the rest of us to suffer!

So anyway, we’ve got a challenge for you: Take a stroll in our vampy, clean-lined, retro-ish-but-smartly-updated shoes. We’re giving away a $1,000 gift certificate to Barneys New York Co-op to the soul who can bring the freshest language to four pages of our shoe guide.

Ooh! Contest-y!

Lucky’s website has the complete details. There’s also a full list of the words banned from the magazine, most of which we actually agree with. Perhaps we lack imagination, but we can’t imagine using “kooky”  to describe a pair of shoes that anyone would want to buy— and what is the point of Lucky if not to entice women to spend? Here’s the list:

adorable

bling

fashionista

fave

fierce

flair

funky

groovy

indulgence

kooky

run, don't walk

shopaholic

the final word in

whimsical

food references used to describe a nonfood item (as in "a delicious shade of pink")

Entrants must fill in captions on four pages of the shoe guide, and the deadline for submissions is March 3. We’re already dreaming about adding -y  to nouns and -ish to adjectives!

Comments

[Romany]

Oh they've banned some really good words - I use 'adorable' way more than I should. Lol.
Not that I can even enter this - it's only open to US residents, yes?
I would think it not a good idea to bring up the fact that editors have trouble creating any aspect of a fashion magazine - it seems unprofessional. Isn't the idea of publishing a good fashion magazine to make it all look effortless? That's what I think anyway.
Romany
xx

[Bru]

I typed in my info, but I can't save it as the instructions want me to do. Neither my home nor work computer have the full version of Acrobat, and I refuse to spend $90 just so I can enter a stupid magazine contest.

Well played, professional ditzes.

[maggie]

I want them to ban the word "so." So girly. So luxe. So intricate. They need to ban the word "intricate" while they're at it. A shoe cannot be intricate.

[tinyweasel]

I think this contest is probably a response to the crap they've gotten on sites like this and Jezebel, where people rank on their overuse of "luxe." Personally, I think there would have been a time when "fierce" would have been a perfectly acceptable adjective in Lucky, but now Christian on Project Runway has gone and run it into the ground.

[Molly]

Great post! Wow. Those Lucky folks are laz-y!

This contest reminds me of that talking Barbie doll that got banned because she said "Math is hard".

But I feel for those magazine writers, who don't like writing lots of words. Writing words is so HARD. Maybe Lucky should become a picturebook. You could go to a store and just point to the picture of the item in the magazine that you wanted, and then you wouln't have to express yourself verball-y.

Also, they forgot to add the word 'dignity' to the banned list.