Glossed Over

Lowest Common Denominator: Cosmopolitan, February

6: Minutes per day needed to “score a slammin’ bod,” according to the cover

Infinite: The disingenuousness of a Cover Girl ad suggesting readers “go for beauty on your own terms” by eschewing department-store cosmetics for the Cover Girl brand. Thanks, Cover Girl, for telling me what my own terms are! Apparently my terms involve buying slightly less expensive stuff I don’t need.

25: Cosmopolitan’s “magic age” for getting married, as cited on page 36

100: In “Beauty: His Picks,” number of men surveyed about whether nail decals are “fun and flirty” or “too over-the-top”

Apparently zero: Number of women surveyed for the same article about whether they care what 100 random men think of their fingernails

1950s: Decade whose gender stereotypes Cosmo rejects in “Are You Turning Your Boyfriend Into a Girlie Man?”—right before suggesting steak and football are inherently masculine and salad, Cat Power, and French movies are inextricably feminine.

101: Page of the aforementioned article that made my head explode. The culprit phrase? “Do more gender-neutral activities with your man (see our “Manly Date Ideas,” at right)…” Since when does “gender-neutral” default to “manly”?

1: Appallingly evocative reference to an erect penis as a “giant breakfast sausage” on page 105. Sorry, I couldn’t let that one pass!

9: Of the thirteen men Cosmo’s crowned its “Fun Fearless Males 2010,” the number who are actors (The other four are a musician, an athlete, a TV producer, and Dr. Oz.)

“Almost 200” and “up to 300”: The supposedly shocking calorie counts in bottled teas and wrap sandwiches, according to “These Healthy Foods Can Make You Fat”

Endless: Stories in this issue devoted to pleasing men sexually (“4 Traits Men Find Irresistible,” “99 Hot New Sex Tips...In 20 Words or Less,” “Tap In to Your Seductive Powers,” “The One Time He Always Wants You”)

4 apiece: Pages devoted to articles about fertility and inter-racial couples

3: Pages devoted to a story about the decline of the thong

2: Pages dedicated to police officer Ally Jacobs, whose investigative work led to the arrest of Jaycee Dugard's captor

Huge: My—and, I’m sure, your—relief at learning one needn’t get a job at Cosmopolitan to achieve the same success with men that its staffers enjoy, because the magazine found 13 of them to give us the inside scoop. Lessons offered by current and former magazine staffers in “Engaged at Cosmo!” include these gems: cook his favorite dishes, avoid discussing marriage, don’t freak out when he plays Guitar Hero (like someone would?), and always wear the latest nail polish.

Zip: Actual eroticism in this month’s edition of “Red Hot Reads,” as exemplified by this decidedly unsexy sentence: “It felt so good that coherent thought was behind her, but she did realize it had never been like this with any other man before.”

Bazaar: Bare Your Body to Boost the Economy

In an essay in the February issue of Bazaar, Derek Blasberg tries valiantly to explain the phenomenon he calls "The Sexification of Fashion."

What is this "sexification," and how do we know it's occurring? I've read his article three times and I'm not exactly certain. But it has something to do with Megan Fox earning a lot of money as the face of Emporio Armani Underwear, Jenna Jameson wearing a tasteful blue frock on Oprah, and pop stars like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Shakira merely existing.

Blasberg's theory rests on two things: a catalog of strange ideas about how women should express their sexuality, and—you guessed it!—the economy. He writes:

A woman tarting up her lifestyle, according to many, can be traced back to a very familiar recent event: the Great Recession.

Riiiight. Like Lady Gaga doesn’t wear pants because she can’t afford them.

“Maybe you can’t afford a new condo or a couture blouse,” [Simon Doonan] teases, “but hanky panky is free!”

Spoken like someone who’s never paid for birth control!

New York’s Upper East Side novelist Jill Kargman argues that a woman feeling a renewed sense of sexual energy and power in the light of the recession shouldn’t be surprising. “Since men’s egos are so wrapped up in their bank accounts, maybe their sex drive mirrors the Dow?” she wonders. “Perhaps women are trying to play into their fantasies more to lift spirits and electroshock them back from the dead?”

Maybe so! I mean, it is our responsibility as women to use our bodies to ensure men feel good about themselves at all times.

“Why dress meekly when things look bleak?” the designer Antonio Berardi asks.

Excellent point! So I assume Berardi wore a see-through singlet and hot pants during this interview. Men are also subject to the new dress code, right?                                               

He agrees with Kargman that in this economy, it’s all about a sexual woman and says, “Every once in a while fashion is dictated not by trends but by the need to feel sexy, to be adored, and to be wanted. Now more so than ever it’s about playing the female card.”

And every once in a while, fashion is dictated by men who justify objectifying women by claiming to know how women feel.

By the way, what constitutes “playing the female card”? Possessing ovaries?

Still, the midst of all this trenchant socio-economic analysis, there is some ever-so-helpful fashion advice. For instance:

…why not try an over-the-knee boot? It’s official: they’re not just for prostitutes anymore!

And, to close the article, this charming reminder:

But [Berardi] warns novices…: “Slutty is just too much and totally wrong.” In other words, ladies, wear underwear!

What a coincidence! “Just too much and totally wrong”—much like this article.

Vogue Takes Its Turn in the Lara Stone Sideshow

I haven’t read an issue of Vogue in three months, but good news for me: nothing’s changed! In her January “Letter from the Editor,” Anna Wintour demonstrates the magazine’s remarkably persistent distance from the real world.

[French fashion designer Sophie Theallet] is a very rare creature in fashion these days. As [Lanvin designer Alber] Elbaz told the crowd, it is too often the case these days that people elect to work in style industries in pursuit of fame, not skills. “Why does every girl over five feet tall and age thirteen want to be a model?” he asked. “Why don’t they ever want to be a seamstress?”

Yeah! Why be the beautiful woman who wears the clothes when you could be the poorly paid one who makes them?

Never a magazine to back down from a completely indefensible viewpoint, the issue also includes an article detailing the struggles of size-four model Lara Stone. Which is great, you know, because Vogue clearly offers an unbiased perspective on the fashion industry’s obsession with preternatural thinness. (Sigh.)

From “Hello, Gorgeous”:

It’s hard to say which came first—the superskinny model or the size 0 sample. Either way, the trend has been tough on both the models, who find it nearly impossible to maintain that body type past the age of seventeen, and the magazines that want to show clothes on models who aren’t painfully thin.

Vogue not being one of those magazines, obviously.

Designers who use the superskinny girls defend the trend, saying clothes hang better on a coat hanger. But the opposite is also true—some clothes look better on bodies with “boobs,” which is why Stone’s career has flourished.

What a charming pair of sentences! Slender women's bodies are compared to coat hangers, the fashion industry's ideal woman is actually an inanimate object, and we learn clothes aren't designed for humans. Oh, and for those who don't happen to resemble a hanger, guess what! One model who is still way thinner than most of us is enough to represent us! Who says the fashion industry doesn't love women?

Stone doesn’t blame fashion for her problems. “I like my job,” she says… She doesn’t even blame the designers—“That is their aesthetic. It’s not for me to say whether it’s right or wrong.”

Well, I’ll say it. It is wrong to call a woman fat because she doesn’t resemble a wire hanger. Also wrong? Not blaming designers. Canonizing a coat hanger as the ideal female form isn't the worst thing they could do, but it's probably illegal to make clothes out of asbestos.

By the way, those difficulties writer Rebecca Johnson refers to? They include a recent stint in rehab for alcohol abuse—a habit that began when Stone tried drinking to lose weight. In a sentence so callous that I can't quite believe it's in print, Johnson says this:

Her problems—if you can even call them that—recall the poet Rilke's definition of fame as the collection of misunderstandings that gather around a person.

Got that? Stone's drinking was reminiscent of Rilke, and not, say, indicative of a destructive atmosphere in the fashion world.

“People still tell me I’m fat, but when I look in the mirror, that’s not what I see.”

Maybe Wintour and Elbaz are on to something: why would a woman aspire to be a model when this is how models are treated?

Stone’s recent surge in prominence may well lead to a positive shift in attitudes—but until then, it’s disheartening to see her continually treated like a size-four sideshow.  Her shape makes her an anomaly in the fashion world, but by focusing on her "fat" size-four body, magazines seem to overlook that she's an anomaly in the real world, too.

Related: What W Really Thinks About Women's Bodies

W: Death Does Not Become Her

Good news, fashionistas! Death doesn't mean forsaking your love of cutting-edge fashion. Just take a look at W's September issue, which features scads of stylish women who just happen to be posed as if they've died or are dying a painful, violent death. Apparently, Gucci and the Grim Reaper need not be mutually exclusive.

From Steven Klein's "Academy," here's the classic just-barely-hanging-on-to-life pose. If this were a movie, she'd have reached up and grabbed the fence with her last breath. Lara Stone really rocks that deathly pallor, doesn't she?

From "Woodstock," photographed by Juergen Teller, actress Jennifer Jason Leigh sprawls on a pool deck in a manner suggesting a struggle:

 

Then we have the snakebite victim:

The woman who is awfully happy about her children lying slain next to her:

A vehicular manslaughter:

From "Sunday in the Park," shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, two limp women in lingerie:

 

And the all-important disposal of the evidence (an unsettling postscript to this photo of happier times in the canoe):

"Paper Bag Princess," photographed by Craig McDean, takes literally the maxim about fashion to die for:

Is slumping against a wall, limbs askew, supposed to be chic?

Evidently!

 

And let's not forget Lanvin's charmless death-by-cats ad, shot by Steven Meisel.

 

Perhaps these portrayals aren't meant to invoke death, but the women in these photos appear weak, helpless, and stripped of their agency. What's the intended message? "Hey, ladies, the last outfit you'll ever wear should be special!"

It's no coincidence that these pictorials were shot by male photographers. Whether these images are the result of lazy art direction, latent sexism, or some other motive, I can't say. But men don't live every day shadowed by the specter of random violence. Women are taught to walk in groups, carry our keys poking through our fingers as a makeshift weapon, and scream "Fire!" instead of "Help!" because no one pays attention to the latter. When you've been indoctrinated that your personal safety is constantly in jeopardy, photographs implying danger are not arty or deep. They're the embodiment of your worst fears.

Maybe that's why photographers find such tableaux so appealing. But dead women in designer clothes isn't a fashion statement, and normalizing violence against women in the pages of a women's magazine doesn't make for edgy editorial. It just makes us fashion victims.

Related: W Redefines "Fashion Victim" in Furry Photo Spread

Vogue Liveblog 2009: The Real September Issue

The cover of this year's edition says it's "the REAL September issue," as opposed to The September Issue. It's a differentiation that doesn't make much sense for most of us, since the movie's only opened in one city. But it just wouldn't be Vogue if it were accessible to everyone!

Before I begin the liveblog, the rules: I have not read any part of this issue—in fact, I haven't even opened it. I have not read any commentary from other blogs about this issue. All I've seen are the front and back covers.  And I'll be blogging in real time—just refresh this post to see the latest.

On with the magazine!

A Sticky Situation in Lucky's September Issue

In its patriotic mission to stimulate the economy, Lucky does everything it can to make shopping easier for the few, the proud, the misanthropes who detest malls, and the between-sizes Americans prone to fitting-room meltdowns. With the stickers marked “YES!” and “MAYBE?” in every issue, vicarious shopping has never been easier! 

This month, instead of tearing out the stickers to annotate a publication with actual paragraphs (like, say, a book), I actually affixed them to the magazine's comparatively noteworthy pages. And in my mission to help you avoid “reading” Lucky, here's what I culled from the September issue:

YES! I may need the entirety of Anna Sui’s Gossip Girl-inspired collection for Target, now that I’ve seen the two-page ad near the front of this issue. Unchecked spending on stuff I don’t need makes me a good American, right?

YES! Just as expected, Kim France’s “Editor’s Letter” does acknowledge the crummy financial climate, but adds that “against all odds,” the magazine’s fashion editors found plenty of great stuff for fall. Such sacrifice!

YES! Lucky continues its slaughter of the English language on page 94, trotting out the non-word “splurgier.” Are there fuses in my brain? Because I think one just blew.

MAYBE? It is totally acceptable to shop at outlets. If you’re in Italy and buying stuff at the Prada outlet, that is. (page 108)

YES! There exists an article of clothing called “zoot pants,” and Lucky’s “Style Spy” expects you to wear them for fall.

YES! Lucky’s editors may suffer from long-term memory loss, since they’ve managed to load up “The Smart Shopping Sourcebook” with heaps of accessories and clothes under $100, but can’t seem to remember those stylish bargains long enough to insert many of them in other features.

YES! According to “Accessories Report,” eyeglasses are in for fall. Great! I hate when glasses are out and I have to go around squinting. Suffer for fashion, right? (Or, you know, wear them and look like I don’t care about my appearance at all.)

MAYBE? Ed Hardy’s new perfume, which, according to the ad in this issue, is a “vintage tattoo inspired fragrance,” could be less appealing. But probably not.

YES! Cosmetics are the sure path to happiness and fulfillment! According to “Beauty Spy,” hot pink blush will make you “instantly feel 5,000 times prettier.” The latest anti-wrinkle potions are “kind of miraculous.” A saffron lip stain is “unexpectedly gorgeous”—for $65, it had better be. A new Maybelline lipstick is “perfect,” and a handful of acne products work with “stunning efficiency.” Yay!

MAYBE? Despite the wisdom so altruistically dispensed on page 214, most readers probably don’t need detailed instructions on shampooing.

YES! It is possible to “Love Your Hair,” as page 224 exuberantly instructs. It doesn’t require a shift in perspective—just a heap of drugstore products, a $140 flat iron, and a $34 shampoo. Easy!

MAYBE? We shouldn’t take beauty editors’ advice as gospel, since in “Skin Regimens of Beauty Editors,” one confesses that she hates washing her face at night and another never takes off her eye makeup before bed. As all of us who’ve been indoctrinated by a lifetime of women’s mags know, not washing up before sleeping is a cardinal sin.

MAYBE? I might have actually used the stickers to mark various pages of the “Lucky Fall Shoe Guide.” I’ll never tell.

YES! As noted in “40s Modern,” the right clothes can make me “magpie-cool.” Whatever that means.

YES! A $415 leopard-print blouse can be worn for work, weekend, and evening, according to “Fall’s Most Versatile Pieces.” Good thing, too, because at that price, it’d be the only blouse I own.

MAYBE? An $1195 Emporio Armani jacket and $630 Bruno Frisoni pumps, as seen on pages 280 and 281, aren’t the best exemplars of the “punk rock” or “collegiate” style the spread is supposed to embody. But then, neither is posing those “punk rock” models in front of a nightclub advertising a show presented by Radio Disney. Oops!

YES! Now that I’ve read the entire issue, I do want to purchase a new wardrobe! Lucky, you’ve successfully completed your mission.

Lowest Common Denominator: Glamour, September

3: Number of exclamation points in the coverline touting the Jessica Simpson story

$13,000: Value of “stuff you want” that Glamour is giving away, per page 64

1: Number of days editor-in-chief Cindi Leive’s assistant spent dressed as Lady Gaga for the “Dare of the Month”

3.5: Time, in minutes, before most women would be sent home from the office if they showed up in fishnets and a leotard

So, so much: Amount I covet the Hugo Boss bag in the ad following page 78

12: Size clothing worn by model Crystal Renn, whose book, Hungry, is reviewed in “Do Get the Season’s Stylish Reads Here,” complete with an excerpt of a “moment we love”

Perhaps 1: Number of size-12 models photographed by Glamour for this issue (keep reading)

2009: Year in which Glamour apparently thinks red lipstick was invented, given their extravagant praise of the stuff on page 89

3: Pages of lipstick ads surrounding the aforementioned feature (1 immediately before and 2 right after)

Nil: Value of the advice given by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana to “play up your prettiest parts.” Really? I shouldn’t highlight my worst features?

100: Page on which Faith Hill recommends Coldplay. You know, they’re that obscure new band you might otherwise have never heard of?

100: Coincidentally, also the page on which I lost my patience with mega-rich celebrities sharing their “knowledge.” See also: why I don’t subject myself to GOOP

50: Percent of men surveyed by Glamour who told the magazine they “groom their privates”

15: Age, approximate, at which I last used the word “privates” non-ironically

1987: Year in which pleated high-waisted pants, like those shown on page 116, should remain. What’s next, paperbag waists?

Zero: Amount the use of “Kate Moss” as a verb, as in “11 Touches That ‘Kate Moss’ Your Wardrobe” on page 133, should be tolerated. Please stop. Now.

5: Number of “fantasies he’s having about you right now” and suggested “real way[s] to romance a guy,” as detailed in the “Men, Sex & Love” section

194: Page you should turn to right now to see a model who actually might be a size 12

+1: Points for featuring Robin Givhan in “Meet the Woman on Michelle Watch”

-10: Points for the article not actually being about Givhan, despite its title

35: Percent of survey respondents who think cover star Jessica Simpson should reunite with ex-husband Nick Lachey

Infinite: My astonishment that people actually have an opinion about who Jessica Simpson should date

0: Approximate number of Americans other than me who have neither read nor seen any part of the Twilight series. Four of the films’ stars appear in a beauty feature called—what else?—“Twilight Beauty”

+1: For including a same-sex pair in “Secrets of Happy Couples”

2,497: Estimated appearances of Clinique’s Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion in stories similar to “24 Best Beauty Buys Now”

36: Financial tips dispensed in “Your Money,” starting on page 268

Not surprisingly, 0: Recommendations in the aforementioned article to invest in clothes or shoes

4: Violent incidents mentioned in “Sex with a Stranger”

1: Number of men in the same article confessing to “really want[ing] to kill” a woman because she wouldn’t have sex with him

5: Meals actress Meryl Streep claims to get from a single chicken in “Hey, Glamour Readers! Julia Child is Making You Dinner”

Karl Lagerfeld in Bazaar: Feminists Are Ugly

From “What Would Coco Do” in the September issue of Bazaar, wherein designer Karl Lagerfeld was asked to “channel the original fashion wit,” Coco Chanel:

HB: Your clothing liberated women in the 1920s. Are you still a feminist?

CC: I was never a feminist because I was never ugly enough for that.

Did your jaw just drop in disbelief? Mine did, too.

So, according to Karl-as-Coco, feminists are ugly. And it’s not just that they’re unattractive—it’s their very lack of pulchritude that made them resort to feminism. What constitutes “ugly enough”? Who knows? When I decided to call myself a feminist, it’s not like I was forced to parade around in a bathing suit before a panel of judges who determined whether I was unappealing enough to do so.

In Monsieur Lagerfeld’s Magical Gender Equity Utopia, beautiful women apparently have no need for feminism. Which is an awesome fantasy for genetic-lottery winners, but I’d rather live in a world where my worth isn’t directly proportionate to how closely I conform to whatever happens to be in style this week. I know, I must be ugly and insane!

Other than being a blatant insult to feminists, Lagerfeld’s attitude is troubling because it forces women into a game we can’t win. Within this rubric, a gorgeous woman’s sole quality is her appearance; and an average woman’s intelligence or insight is nullified by her embrace of feminism.

The end result: our only worth is the way we look. How’s that for ugly?

InStyle Makeover Needs a Makeover of Its Own

As I discovered this weekend, InStyle Makeover and Taco Bell are remarkably similar. They're both cheap and require a very strong gag reflex. 

What was it about this special issue that was so hard to swallow? Was it the $600 cosmetic case? The fact that some no-doubt-underpaid editorial assistant had to conceptualize the ways in which a purse can camouflage a “flawed” figure? Or that every woman made over in this issue didn’t really need a makeover?

Impossible beauty standards, you win again! And we lose.

Take a look at Vanessa Hudgens, who was given an “undone” makeover. This was the result:

According to InStyle, this is a “polished no-makeup look.” Don’t you roll out of bed sporting fake eyelashes and the exact right shade of nude lipstick? With a professional hairstylist and makeup artist at your disposal, this natural look is so easy to achieve!

A few pages later, “Plump + Go” features someone who actually isn’t wearing makeup. That’s because she’s a model preparing to be injected with four different substances—Botox, Perlane, Cosmoderm, and Restylane. So there are at least four reasons none of us look anything like the women we see in magazines.

Continuing the trend of making over people who don’t really need making over, “6 Weeks to Slim” pairs two magazine staffers with trainers who, naturally, impose ultra-strict quasi-scientific edicts. Do they lose weight? Yes. Did they need to lose it in the first place? Nope! Both have BMIs within the normal range.

Admittedly, the BMI is a flawed calculation. Fine. But this depiction of two slim women getting slimmer alongside a “Dress Yourself Thin” coverline and a food diary from manicurist Ji Baek, whose diet consists largely of champagne—it all sends a powerful message about our bodies.

It says that our bodies aren’t ours—they’re open for public comment. That they don’t exist for our pleasure or strength but instead that they are a source of shame. That starvation and sacrifice are the path to self-satisfaction.

As long as our bodies and faces belong not to us but to an ever-changing, ever-more-impossible standard, women will be going to war with themselves.

Wouldn’t it be a pleasant surprise to see a magazine emphasize being healthy and strong instead of slender and young? Wouldn’t it be great to see a magazine stop referring to “boyish” figures, as if those women somehow aren’t female enough, and stop altogether ignoring larger women? Wouldn't it be a positive change to see a fashion spread focus on flattery instead of camouflage?

Absolutely. But I’m not holding my breath. To accomplish anything other than selling insecurity, InStyle Makeover would need a makeover of its own.

What W Really Thinks About Women's Bodies

This is model Lara Stone on the cover of the August issue of W.

 

This is Lara Stone modeling inside that same issue.

And this is Lara Stone in her underwear, also from the August issue.

These are some of the terms used to describe Lara Stone in the editor's letter and the article “Fashion’s It Girl”:

• “a little meat on her bones” (W’s deputy editor, Julie L. Belcove)
• “voluptuous frame”  (the article’s author, Sarah Haight)
• “a mix of a warrior and Brigitte Bardot” (designer Isabel Marant)
• “her body…a refreshing aesthetic shift away from the prepubescent boy figure that has lately dominated fashion” (Haight)
• “big, bad and beautiful” (photographer Bruce Weber)

And this is how Lara Stone describes her own body:

“A lot of people say it’s nice to see someone who won’t break in half when you touch them,” she says… “But I am still a woman and a person, and if you’re compared and confronted with your colleagues, and they’re all half your size, you think, F---, I’m really fat! And then on other days, I’m like, Oh, I’m not that bad.”

“Not that bad”? A woman who makes money posing in her underwear is “not that bad”?

The fashion industry—and, in turn, the fashion media—have such a warped concept of slimness that a model like Lara Stone is so much larger than her contemporaries that they feel the need to explain her presence. If Stone’s body is such an outlier, what does that say about the rest of us?

Worse, the magazine saw fit to issue the disclaimer that Stone “is, it should be noted, a very lithe five foot ten.” Why, yes, do note that! As if there’s the slightest chance someone is going to look at these photos and think Stone needs to, like, slow down on the Cheetos.

The article mentions multiple times that her look is a modeling-world anomaly. And that gives editors, photographers, and designers the chance to explain why they hired her—which is really just a whole lot of self-congratulatory masturbation about how open-minded they are, like they have to somehow justify (to us!) casting a woman whose ribs don't poke out above her cleavage. Yeah, they’re real body-image mavericks. What a revolution. If they truly believed that Stone’s shape is so enviable, why the need for justification? If the “meat on her bones” is so praiseworthy, why don’t we see more models with “meat”?

Her figure may be in vogue, but the rest of us have to live with our bodies no matter what magazines deem the ideal shape of the moment. Perhaps the industry could stop treating Stone like a freakshow long enough to realize how very hypocritical it is to praise her curves and how insulting it is to us when they’re compelled to rationalize featuring a woman with hips and a bustline. We have those. We get it.

Clearly, the fashion industry doesn’t.

Related: The Language of Magazines: Is “Curvy” Completely Meaningless?