In the August issue, “Where Can I Find…” answers the burning question of where Eva Longoria shops. Here’s one element of her look:
Oh, thanks, InStyle! I totally would have spent $65,000 in the vain hope of accessorizing just like Eva Longoria if you hadn’t alerted me to the possibility of spending less. I’ll just put my black Amex away now.
We’re just a few weeks away from the massive September magazines! That means it’s almost time for the same crop of overexposed celebrities who appear on all the covers to snag yet another one. (Vanity Fair, while not strictly a fashion mag, will feature a handful of models.) Here’s who’ll be gracing, er, appearing:
Vogue: Keira Knightley (and just like last year, I’ll be liveblogging as I read the issue)
Allure: Carrie Underwood
Cosmopolitan: Blake Lively
Elle: Jessica Simpson (who, apparently, was on the cover of Elle’s best-selling issue ever. Ever. How is that even possible?)
Glamour: Penelope Cruz
InStyle: Uma Thurman
W: Kate Hudson
No word yet on which flaxen-haired tabloid fixture will land Marie Claire, Lucky, or Bazaar.
Where credit is due • I read an issue of Missbehave a few months ago and haven’t picked it up
since, but I’m tempted by Issue #8 solely because of two of the cover lines. (Never mind the banana-hugging model.) In the lower left hand corner, it says
Perez Hilton is vomit
and in the upper left hand corner:
Lose 10 pounds! Or don’t! Nobody cares!
Both of those lines seem much more sensible than InStyle’s “Anne Hathaway Makes Fashion Fun!,” and I read that dreck every month.
So, the U.S. is teetering on the brink of a recession. While there is a smattering of financial advice scattered throughout the July issues, the magazines focus on something far more important than investments and job security: looking good! Priorities! The best investment to weather an economic crisis is, apparently, your wardrobe. I’m no financial expert, but based on what’s in the magazines this month, I will say this: If Forever 21 ever goes public, buy.
Nearly all the magazines offer looks at lower prices, but considering the source, lower-priced is not necessarily low-end. Here’s a breakdown of the style sticker shock:
Bazaar
One page of “Hottest, Newest, Latest” is devoted to “fashion at AFFORDABLE prices.” It was wise to emphasize the word “affordable,” because otherwise—well, see for yourself.
Total number of deals: 6
Their idea of dirt cheap: A $69 Banana Republic scarf
Most expensive bargain: A $395 Elie Tahari clutch
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: $140 J. Crew flats
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $450,000 Neil Lane for De Beers bracelet
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: A $46,650 Balenciaga dress. No, it isn’t woven from gold. Why do you ask?
Cosmopolitan
“How to Shop Summer Sales” blends fashion with suggestions to befriend a saleswoman and keep your receipts for price adjustments. Original!
Total number of deals: 14
Their idea of dirt cheap: A $49 dress from Macy’s
Most expensive bargain: A $158 necklace, Marc by Marc Jacobs
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: $48 DKNY jeans
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $575 3.1 Philip Lim dress
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: Cosmo neglects to list prices for the most expensive items, like the YSL cardigan worn by a model riding a jetski. Where else would you wear such a sweater?
Elle
An eight-page spread, “Le Cheap, C’est Chic!,” is annoyingly teased on the cover with the line “No She Didn’t!” Because, you know, spending less than $150 on an item of clothing is totally a novel lifestyle choice and not a necessity!
Total number of deals: Who can tell what Elle thinks is “cheap”? They’ve got Forever 21 mixed with Burberry.
Their idea of dirt cheap: A $6 bead necklace and, the fashion find of the century, a $7 Hanes t-shirt. Thanks for uncovering that hidden gem, Elle!
Most expensive bargain: Elle’s “inexpensive” clothes are paired with thousands of dollars of jewelry, as if that’s the only way to redeem them. The highest-priced piece in “Le Cheap” is a $3,990 diamond ring.
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: $48 Levi’s denim shorts worn by Mary-Kate Olsen
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $5,600 Marchesa satin dress
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: Ludicrous $300 square sunglasses by Luella by Linda Farrow. People aren’t actually going to buy those, right? Right?
Glamour
Bargains are splashed across one page, “Summery work stuff—all less than $40,” and a high-low feature, “Your Summer Extras.”
Total number of deals: 12 for sure; the high-low feature doesn’t designate what is what. A $40 scarf could go either way.
Their idea of dirt cheap: A $10 Shop Suey ring
Most expensive bargain: A $70 Roberta Freymann tote (assuming this is what counts for low-end in Glamour’s universe. Since another page in the same story features a $795 straw hat, I think it must.)
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $25 Chinese Laundry belt
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: The $12,000 Louis Vuitton Speedy mentioned here
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: Gotta be that hat.
InStyle
An anemic single page is devoted to “Deals & Steals.”
Total number of deals: 7
Their idea of dirt cheap: $14 aviator sunglasses by Shop Suey
Most expensive bargain: A $139 MNG by Mango dress
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: An $18 American Apparel t-shirt
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: An $88,000 Van Cleef and Arpels ring
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: An $18,000 Donna Karan crocodile bag. It’s just a purse.
Lucky
An entire feature, “The Season’s Best Looks Under $100,” is given over to low-price style.
Total number of deals: 67
Their idea of dirt cheap: An $18 Mossimo for Target top
Most expensive bargain: Tie: at $99, a “tiered maxiskirt” by WDNY International and a Tommy Hilfiger cotton dress
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $7 Metro 7 tank top
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $1,465 bracelet by Steven Dweck
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: Chanel charges $1,225 for a belt. A belt! I regret not launching a career in luxury fashion.
Marie Claire
They’ve spread the discounts throughout: there’s one page of “101 Ideas,” one page of “Splurge vs. Steal,” and a feature, “Black & White,” that’s high-low.
Total number of deals: 40
Their idea of dirt cheap: $7 Hue socks (Thanks, Marie Claire, I was really overspending on socks.)
Most expensive bargain: $300 Marciano shoes (worn with the $7 Hue socks, natch)
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: $5.80 Forever 21 sunglasses
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: An $18,800 Cartier ring
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: A Chanel top and skirt set that retails for the low, low price of $10,745.
Self
Looks like all the clothes shown in the fashion features under $100, which is excellent.
Total number of deals: 100, according to the cover
Their idea of dirt cheap: It’s a tie at $8 for a Forever 21 necklace and Old Navy earrings
Most expensive bargain: Another tie, this one at $99, for a Nahui Ollin tote, an RJ Graziano necklace, and a $99 Tommy Hilfiger clutch. Those are special prices for Self readers, however, so this hews dangerously close to cheating.
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: See above for $8 jewelry.
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: That tank top Anne Hathaway is wearing on the cover? Yeah. It’s $845, and she’s wearing it with necklaces whose combined total is $5,300.
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: $49 jelly shoes, but probably only because I’m old enough to remember buying jellies the first time around.
Vogue
In “The Economists,” Vogue editors offer “inspired finds under $500 (plus one key investment piece).” Oh, thank god, because I needed help to find clothes that cost so little.
Total number of deals: 31, not counting the home décor and investment pieces
Their idea of dirt cheap: A $127 Sykes London belt
Most expensive bargain: Seven items retail for $495, including a John Varvatos coat, a Moschino Cheap and Chic skirt, and a 3.1 Philip Lim dress. (You didn’t think they’d go four whole pages without mentioning Lim, did you?)
Cheapest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $150 YSL dickey
Priciest item elsewhere in the magazine: A $16,600 Cartier watch
Item whose price makes me question the wisdom of capitalism: Hands down, the dickeys were the most egregiously priced items I saw in any of the magazines. Vogue featured two: a $150 YSL version and a $395 Prada one. That’s an awful lot of scratch for something that isn’t even a real shirt.
The Hannah Montana star was quoted in the June InStyle article “House Music”:
“The main pressure is just being yourself,” she says. “I told my mom, ‘I’m not buying another magazine until I can get past this thought of looking like the girl on the cover.’ She said,
‘Miley, you are that girl,’ and I was like, ‘I know, but I don’t feel like that every day.’ You can’t always feel perfect.”
I think it’s safe to say this will be the only time I even vaguely commiserate with Miley Cyrus. What makes any of us feel like we have to look like the Photoshopped cover of a glossy? Is it self-loathing, insecurity, a desperate desire to feel good about ourselves? For me, it was all of the above. In my late teens and early twenties, I sunk tons of energy and thousands of dollars into a futile effort to look like the women portrayed in magazines. I spent an hour every morning blowdrying my hair straight and then curling it. I ate celery sticks and sugar-free Jello for lunch. I shopped for clothes and cosmetics twice a week.
I’m not that woman anymore, but recusing myself from insane standards doesn’t make my frustration with them any less acute.
So I’m annoyed by Miley’s statement. Is it duplicitous to participate in photo shoots and then complain about the unreality of it all? (A selection of scans from the InStyle shoot is after the jump.) Or are performers unfairly shoved into a corner where they have to talk about clothes and makeup to promote themselves?
Fashion-mag photo spreads are part of the Faustian bargain of celebrity. But if a famous 15-year-old thinks her photos are unrealistic, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Continue reading "Miley Cyrus May Never Buy Another Issue of InStyle" »
Think designer clothes are too costly? Tired of being told by fashion magazines that a $1,500 trench coat is a worthwhile investment? You’re in luck! It’s officially hip to be poor!
Or, at least, it’s cool to be outrageously wealthy and merely dress like you’re poor. It’s like role-playing! Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, ever vanguards, flirted with dumpster chic in 2005, and Tyra Banks recently forced a whole coterie of models to pose as homeless. What’s behind this? Is it a reaction to the floundering economy or a misguided attempt at empathy?
Maybe it’s just the arrogance of people who’ve never sweated next month’s rent. Here’s Christina Applegate’s reminiscence of her child star days in “Christina Who?” from InStyle’s spring Shape Issue:
Her role models were the usual eighties teen-rebel idols—The Smiths, and Siouxsie and the Banshees—as well as the occasional unknowns she spotted on the street. “The same girlfriend and I were in the back of my mom’s car, and we saw this girl, and she had the coolest outfit and we said, ‘Mom, drive up closer.’ And it turned out she was a bag lady. We coveted the outfit of a bag lady.”
The “unknown” was actually a bag lady! Ha!
But at least Applegate’s homeless fashion fixation is a thing of the past. Nicole Richie, on the other hand, is still carrying a torch for the domicile-free look. As quoted in “Nicole Richie’s Domestic Bliss” in Bazaar, June:
She was sanguine about her bad behavior and frank about her friendships, and she confided that she fancied a sort of rocker boy who looks “really pale…really skinny,” adding, “I like people that kind of look homeless.”
So that explains her relationship with Joel Madden! Seriously, Nicole? Don’t pose for a fashion magazine at
your father’s spacious Beverly Hills estate while opining how great homeless people look. Don’t they lecture about that in finishing school? (In one of the photos, Lionel Richie is wearing a t-shirt that reads “Hello.” Outstanding!)
But there is one starlet who has never once harbored ambitions of living out of a shopping cart, though she does attempt to impersonate Charlie Chaplin in the baffling accompanying photo shoot. In “Comic Timing” (Allure, June), Jessica Alba bluntly expresses her desire for material success:
What she craved was an acting career and money. Maybe not in that order…“I grew up not having a lot,” Alba says, her face solemn. “I’m really happy to be making money, not depending on a man, and not having to suffer to survive in this business. Struggling is not fun. Been there, done that.”
But dressing like you’re struggling when, in fact, you’re loaded? Fun!
After heroin chic and the current homeless chic, what’s the next imitating-the-less-fortunate craze that celebs will engage in? Hungry chic?
Oh, wait. They’re already doing that, aren’t they?
To-Do List • Attempting to walk in Lucky’s shoes? Deadline’s approaching! The cut-off to enter the magazine’s caption-writing contest is Monday, March 3, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
And if you’re looking for reading material beyond the new issue of Vogue (what is up with Drew Barrymore on the cover?), these stories have captured our attention this week:
• Anna Wintour responds to Carine Roitfeld calling her a “puppet” by refusing to comment, thereby crushing our hopes for an all-out intercontinental war between the Vogue editors.
• Take a glimpse at the past—and the present, and, we fear, the future—of women’s magazines. (Thanks, Melinika!)
• InStyle mixes up the non-Beyoncé members of Destiny’s Child.
• And are Holocaust memorials wildly inappropriate locales for fashion shoots? One brand, facing backlash from shots of a male model at the Vienna monument, admits they “didn’t think through everything.” Well, that much is clear. (via SuperColossal)
2: Number of pages devoted to Kate Hudson (“Her 10 best, ever!”)
4: Additional photos of Kate Hudson throughout the issue (pages 78, 112, 115, 149)
7, not counting writer Johanna Schneller: People who gush over Katie Holmes in “What Katie Wants” (The illustrious Kate Cruise Fan Club counts the following luminaries as members: Sherry Lansing, Giambattista Valli, Diane Keaton, Giorgio Armani, Victoria Beckham, Callie Khouri, and Christopher Bailey of Burberry.)
29: Percentage of paragraphs in “What Katie Wants” in which Katie gushes about Tom Cruise or “being a
wife”
Way, way too much: Amount Katie is trying to make her marriage appear sound
1: Ludicrous statement about femininity in “Figure Flattery.” The collarbone is, according to InStyle, “arguably one of the most feminine parts of a woman’s body.” Wait, are they really claiming certain parts of a woman’s body are more feminine than others? No word on which parts are, like, unacceptably gender-neutral.
1: Animal whose fur is suggested as a “problem solver” for upper arms in the same article (That’d be the rabbit, and there’s a shrug and a capelet crafted of its pelt.)
$54.80: Average price of the “positively affordable” items in “Deals & Steals,” which is—surprise!—actually affordable
3: Photos of Jennifer Garner in the same magenta Zac Posen dress (pages 75, 76, and 110). We love us some Sydney Bristow, and it’s a gorgeous dress, but three times?
1: Number of animate objects listed in “Designer Lust List” (Jenni Kayne says a French bulldog is a must-have. Dogs, yes! But pups as fashion accessories? God, no.)
10: Steps involved in a “simple…approach to getting it right in the new year and beyond,” per “Beauty 2008: Your Master Plan”
Absolutely none: Amount of interest we have in developing a “master plan” involving a “signature scent” and hair accessories. Like we have nothing better to do?
42: Percent of ad pages in this issue which tout cosmetics, skincare, and haircare products
26: Words we read in the Vanessa Williams story. They were: “Can a native New Yorker like Vanessa Williams find true bliss—and a really good soy chai latte—way out West? You bet your sweet Buddha.”
Approximately a billion: Number of times we’ve seen the story about a New Yorker moving to L.A. Doesn’t anyone east of the Mississippi realize that we do, in fact, have bagels on the West Coast?
Infinitely: Degree to which we were bored with this issue
Well, that’s one way to sell stuff… • By insulting potential customers and reinforcing stereotypes at the same time! Who knew such a feat was possible? Here’s our least favorite celeb turned brand name Sarah Jessica Parker discussing her signature fragrances, as quoted in “The Fragrance Diaries” in the December issue of InStyle. “Lovely is very polite. It’s the girl you marry, and Covet is the girl you date, you know? Covet is fun, slightly wanton, desperate. [emphasis ours] It’s for a stop-at-nothing-to-get-what-you-want kind of a girl.”
The issue weighs: 3 full pounds
Issue thickness: Nearly an inch
Who’s on the cover: Gwen Stefani looking somehow different than usual. We can’t decide if she’s the victim of
extreme Photoshopping or if this is what she actually looks like.
Who bought the back cover: Yves Saint Laurent, with a gorgeous, moody ad featuring Gisele Bundchen
Most misleading cover line:
Most Revealing Star Photos Ever
Revealing? Bah! These photos are about as racy as pics of your grandmother in a skirted bathing suit. Rachel Bilson wears a bra, but is covered from her rib cage to her knees. Ooh, daring! Denis Leary is shirtless! Eh. Joy Bryant’s entire leg is on display! Ben Stiller displays a whopping five inches of sternum. We aren’t saying that celebs should doff their clothes for a camera (or that we actually have the desire to see Stiller without his shirt), but these pics reveal nothing. They’re decently composed photos, but ultimately? Nothing to see here except the black-and-white photo of legendary jerk Terence Howard stretched across two patio chairs in his underwear, if only because it has to be the most awkward, uncomfortable pose ever and we like to think of it as a form of cosmic retribution.
Number of ad pages between the cover and the table of contents: 50
Total number of pages: 618
How many of those pages are ads: 284, about 46 percent (source: MIN Online)
Subscription cards: Two bound, no blow-ins. Less mess!
Cosmetic samples: We can actually smell our copy from across the room now
that we’ve peeled open the samples inside. It is pure perfume overload in this issue: Dolce & Gabbana Light
Blue, Dior J’adore, Guerlain My Insolence, Usher The Scent for Women, L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani (natch), and Fendi Palazzo. The worst by far is Usher’s, which is foul—it’s
reminiscent of fruity air freshener blended with turpentine. And the essence of Usher as a fragrance? Gag-inducing.
Is it portable? Not unless you’re a lumberjack and therefore accustomed to lugging around
this much dead tree. Leave it at home.
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