You can bank on the first couple of issues of any mag in any given year to be write-offs, dominated by ads, editorials (often staggeringly mismatched with the current season) reprinted from overseas editions, half-hearted features on "getting into shape over the summer" and (as is the special province of Vogue Australia) encyclopaedically-detailed and puff-encrusted "sealed sections" on cosmetic surgery. February's Vogue Australia is no exception, so perhaps it's a bit unfair to give it too much a of teeth-kicking.
The Jennifer Connelly cover, reprinted from a recent editorial in US Vogue (another pic from that shoot claimed the cover for that edition) is typical of the blandsome and beige aesthetic favoured by Anna Wintour's glorified telephone directory - a Beige Pages, if you will - of a mag. Plus, in the cover pic she reminds me of Andie McDowell, which puts me in a mental state which is, I suspect, next door to the sensation of swallowing razor-blades in the street of my imagination. Almost every other pic in the shoot (with the exception of the one that made the US Vogue cover) is more cover-worthy than the one they chose. And I don't understand the Vogue Australia obsession with halter dresses - every second cover features some hapless celebrity being throttled by one.
There is nothing more depressing than reading a celebrity-interview. Jennifer Connelly offers us such words of wisdom as: "I don't think someone's hair colour should define their personality." Clearly those two months at Stanford didn't rub off...
Season/mood-inappropriateness manifests itself gloriously in the "Suit Yourself" editorial: who wants to be reminded of one's imminent return to work at this time of year? Not only is it inappropriate but I find it incomprehensible when Vogue pretends to be practical by doing edits on (for example) "workwear": either offer realistic fashion options for mundane scenarios (and not Ana Demeulemeester sequined jackets) or don't offer them at all - Vogue does glamour and fantasy best, and that's what it should stick to.
The Raquel Zimmerman edit (reprinted from Paris Vogue) is fairly lush and I fell in love with the telegraphic classicism of the Ralph Lauren shirts. The "Body of Evidence" lingerie editorial is beautiful, but the Bill Hensonesque aesthetic almost prevents the bras and things from being seen properly at all: there are ways of making a shoot moody without plunging everything into Stygean darkness.
Features articles in Vogue Australia
not concerned with fashion have as far back as I can remember had a tokenistic and amateurish quality (underscored by the Natasha Inchley controversy of earlier this year): if we really wanted to read about breast cancer or the neurobiological basis of romantic love, we'd read marie claire (which of course some of us do).
All in all, this issue is not a keeper, in the tradition of most January/February issues. In general, though, the trajectory for Vogue Australia since being purchased by News Limited has been an upward one: you do get the feeling there's more money sloshing around. I bought my first Vogue Paris today: where has it been all my life? Maybe if I keep buying it enough French will rub off in time to appear
chic during my planned Montreal jaunt at the end of this year.
