A couple of years back, Monocle led a mini-revolution in the magazine empire when it emphasized the newsletter-reading experience to be a ‘total’ one. With its use of an array of odd-sized textured pages, to the re-introduction of the radio as not just an undiminished, but in-vogue and relevant medium through its popular podcasts, magazines have never been so full-bodied. Yet, the fledging emergence of the iPhone (GQ, Esquire) and the tablet PC (Time Inc.) as a viable digital platform for experiencing magazines seems to take the former movement one step back. But one might ask: has this process somehow come full circle? The subterranean impact of technology on corporeality cannot ebb the reality of how the experiential has changed. With basic typing, the use of the mouse scroll, touch screens, Wii consoles and LAN gaming just to name a few, our finger(tips) have become arguably more nimble, sensitive, and empowered. However, are we more in touch, or out of it? These undercurrents can either be early alarm calls to a potential tsunami, or nascent streams of creativity that push us towards yet another (r)evolution. Regardless, I say: beware the deep end.
Let’s put things in perspective here: with the same amount of money, one would be able to purchase three penguin classics, one copy of the National Geographic or finance half of your monthly newspaper subscription. But what if that particular magazine happened to be Vogue’s (US) September issue? Well, that changes a lot of things for some people, especially those people who were fortunate enough to watch R.J Cutler’s ‘The September Issue’ – the latest documentary about American Vogue and its acid-tongued chief editor Anna Wintour.
The film in itself was great; Cutler did an awesome job balancing the gloss and grime of the flashy fashion industry. You leave the cinema having more respect for the magazine and the fashion industry as a whole and all of a sudden, fashion makes so much more sense to you than ever before. Late August arrives and you find yourself glancing at every magazine stand you pass by, hoping to see if the Bible of fashion has arrived. You finally get your copy (it’s as thick as a phonebook, another thing it is famous for) and you read Wintour’s opening sermon and gush at her brilliance. Then you flip the pages oh-so-carefully, like it’s the scrolls from the Dead Sea. Then you realise that half of the magazine are made up of bloody advertisements. What a buy.
It took me quite a while before I reached the photo spreads and editorials. The photoshoots by Grace Coddington (Vogue’s creative director) were spectacular. The attention given to detail in the 1940s inspired photoshoot were incredible. And what better way to say ‘Red is the new Black’ than with a reconstructed story of a very sexy Lil’ Red Riding Hood and a pack of wolves. The editorials were just so-so.
The 150 pages of advertising aside, I liked Coddington’s gumption,imagination and sense of style, but I may be biased because she is the only person in the entire office that eats and talks like a regular human being. And like me, she doesn’t comb her hair.
Would I buy this again? Not until they start removing the countless ads. The weight of it just makes it so unpractical for an easy read. Better to spend the money on something else and pray that you’ll be able to steal a copy from your doctor’s office.
