The September Issue, status and The Seventies
Wild-Dyed Woman: The winner is suzanne ackermann! Suzanne, please contact me with your postal address. (My address in the sidebar, under "Welcome".)
It began in mid-August: Is it there yet, on the rack? Must not even look, I tell myself. Then I ask Le Duc to check. Every day.
This is my heritage, my nemesis: The September Issue.
Its spell was cast in my teens. Mom would drive out to camp on August Sunday afternoons. For the first three weeks, she brought clean laundry, candy, and Herbal Essence shampoo.
But on Sunday of the last week, she would bring the plump September Vogue. The counsellors fought to read it; by Friday, when I packed my duffle to go home, the issue was creased and smeared with Coppertone.
I was more than ready to gorge on Top 40 hits and dispense lanyards to my girlfriends. I also returned primed to lust for a Coach bucket bag (how the mighty have fallen). The habit persisted from my teens through thirties, from Villager to Donna Karan. Whether new or consignment, it had to be "that one".
In order for an object to confer status, enough persons have to know what they are looking at, so that they can be duly impressed. If a Prada bag fell over in a forest, would it make a sound? Only if the squirrels thought, "Oooooh!"
Status is relative. I've known women who do not consider their production Hermès bags anything much; it is the custom-order in an exotic skin that counts.
I'm not immune, even though I'm on to the game. When a luxe Italian sportscar purrs down my street, I think, Nice car, man. The things were invented to make us look!
What are the current status markers, the trophies and temptors? Open the September Issue to see brands stake out their turf. If you have your head turned, ask yourself if that coat would raise your heartbeat even if you didn't know who made it.
And sometimes the answer will be, Si! I visited my friend Alice this summer. In the guest room closet, I shared space with her mother's Pucci tunic, an exuberant swath of silk jersey. The Pucci signature was hidden within the famous swirling print, but fashion-conscious women would have known, fifty years ago, what this was. Mrs. E. felt like a contessa in it; now Alice occasionally wears it to parties.
Status brands are practiced seducers; they cannot rely solely on the few who can buy without thought. They employ classic attractors: beauty, rarity (the special edition, the numbered release), quality—and especially their ability to transmit that you are superior and alluring because you have this.
Why did I buy this month's Vogue? To see what the culture presents as aspirational, a time capsule of the commercially covetable. Though the cover boasts of "redrawing fashion's map", much of the glossy gear is straight out of the '70s!
Left: Miu Miu miniskirt and pink glacé bag; top right: Louis Vuitton does shoulderpads; bottom right,: Gucci tracksuit—with a model looking exactly like Faye Dunaway from that era.
Hermès put a buttery '70s trench on both pages of its spread, while The Row suggest....? I must ask the Olsens.
Will women look like extras from "The Deuce" this fall? The mix of the fantastic and wearable has not changed, though I noticed fewer obvious logos.
Hundreds of ads later, there was nothing that I longed for (well, that I could responsibly afford) though I was captivated by this fake fur stole, plush stripes of pungent colour and houndstooth tweed.
Not that hard to run up your own version, is it?
If you want to Seventies-Up your wardrobe, buy a newsboy's cap, a pair of aviator shades, and tuck a pullover into button-fly high-rise flares. Ring any bells?
And "The Deuce" is back, channeling 1977 Times Square style: secretary blouses, jumpsuits and the advent of the jeans cut still loved today. Read Summer Lin's interview with the show's talented costumer Anna Terrazas, who nailed the look for Maggie Gyllenhaal and the rest of the cast, here.
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This is my heritage, my nemesis: The September Issue.
Its spell was cast in my teens. Mom would drive out to camp on August Sunday afternoons. For the first three weeks, she brought clean laundry, candy, and Herbal Essence shampoo.
But on Sunday of the last week, she would bring the plump September Vogue. The counsellors fought to read it; by Friday, when I packed my duffle to go home, the issue was creased and smeared with Coppertone.
I was more than ready to gorge on Top 40 hits and dispense lanyards to my girlfriends. I also returned primed to lust for a Coach bucket bag (how the mighty have fallen). The habit persisted from my teens through thirties, from Villager to Donna Karan. Whether new or consignment, it had to be "that one".
In order for an object to confer status, enough persons have to know what they are looking at, so that they can be duly impressed. If a Prada bag fell over in a forest, would it make a sound? Only if the squirrels thought, "Oooooh!"
Status is relative. I've known women who do not consider their production Hermès bags anything much; it is the custom-order in an exotic skin that counts.
I'm not immune, even though I'm on to the game. When a luxe Italian sportscar purrs down my street, I think, Nice car, man. The things were invented to make us look!
What are the current status markers, the trophies and temptors? Open the September Issue to see brands stake out their turf. If you have your head turned, ask yourself if that coat would raise your heartbeat even if you didn't know who made it.
And sometimes the answer will be, Si! I visited my friend Alice this summer. In the guest room closet, I shared space with her mother's Pucci tunic, an exuberant swath of silk jersey. The Pucci signature was hidden within the famous swirling print, but fashion-conscious women would have known, fifty years ago, what this was. Mrs. E. felt like a contessa in it; now Alice occasionally wears it to parties.
Status brands are practiced seducers; they cannot rely solely on the few who can buy without thought. They employ classic attractors: beauty, rarity (the special edition, the numbered release), quality—and especially their ability to transmit that you are superior and alluring because you have this.
Why did I buy this month's Vogue? To see what the culture presents as aspirational, a time capsule of the commercially covetable. Though the cover boasts of "redrawing fashion's map", much of the glossy gear is straight out of the '70s!
Left: Miu Miu miniskirt and pink glacé bag; top right: Louis Vuitton does shoulderpads; bottom right,: Gucci tracksuit—with a model looking exactly like Faye Dunaway from that era.
Hermès put a buttery '70s trench on both pages of its spread, while The Row suggest....? I must ask the Olsens.
Will women look like extras from "The Deuce" this fall? The mix of the fantastic and wearable has not changed, though I noticed fewer obvious logos.
Hundreds of ads later, there was nothing that I longed for (well, that I could responsibly afford) though I was captivated by this fake fur stole, plush stripes of pungent colour and houndstooth tweed.
Not that hard to run up your own version, is it?
If you want to Seventies-Up your wardrobe, buy a newsboy's cap, a pair of aviator shades, and tuck a pullover into button-fly high-rise flares. Ring any bells?
And "The Deuce" is back, channeling 1977 Times Square style: secretary blouses, jumpsuits and the advent of the jeans cut still loved today. Read Summer Lin's interview with the show's talented costumer Anna Terrazas, who nailed the look for Maggie Gyllenhaal and the rest of the cast, here.
Comments
I'll certainly flip through it in a library, out of sheer visual pleasure. Indeed, while it is obvious that ads are necessary for glossy magazines to be affordable for non-professionals, they have utterly overpowered editorial copy.
how I love thee. I am so happy you're back! :)
Lynn L: I've thought that they really don't care about the September articles, they have long seemed slapdash.
Maria: Like you, fashion mags are usually hair salon, etc. reads; September Vogue is a different thing to me, embedded with nostalgia. But then I wonder why I did it, kind of like a banana split.
Marina: Thank you for your welcome, it's wonderful to be in touch with so many interesting women.
eleni: I found it very "young" and as they say, if you wore it the first time around...
LauraH: My friend remembers accompanying her mother to pick up Paris purchases- I don't think couture but there were alterations involved, and standing in the shops with her hands carefully folded so she did not stroke the gorgeous fabrics.
sensitive poet: I am finding more pulse-raising but actually wearable possibilities in those Guardian features that show various ages in more or less affordable clothes. Do you like them?
Northmoon: High end house/garden/decor mags share the same DNA, aspirational and sometimes completely over the top styling. I swoon over Venetian palazzos with custom furniture.
Leslie Milliagn: Fun pary and great outfit! Could you wear those platforms for the duration? A friend's husband has not changed his glasses frames since the '70s. Yup, aviators.
Une femme: Dreaming of "the Life", yes, and my GFs and I wanted to look like Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton despite very, very few of us having the genetic predisposition.
and similar. Just go to Lifestyle> Fashion and look around.
I did pick up a bit of a magazine habit over the years, once I had a bit of money, but Vogue really only attracted my curiosity and then attention once I entered the blogging world. I came to see the aspirational appeal (but always with a troubled class awareness I just can't shake), and I was favourably impressed by the high quality of the writing (and editing! one of the last places where it's rare to find a spelling, grammatical, or typographical error). I even got to picking up a copy most months, almost working my way through each issue. But especially with our move to a smaller space, I don't know that I've bought a single magazine in the past two or three years. Makes me a bit sad, really, another of those lifelong practices evaporating behind me. . .
Sorry, my comment's long than I meant it to be, and I've gone off on a bit of a tangent. I did love picturing your mother bringing a copy of Vogue to you at summer camp. . . .
I do enjoy The Gentlewoman and will shell out for the issues; at only two per year it doesn't feel like a waste.
I do like The Gentlewoman. I looked at the WSJ fall fashion magazine, because my mom had it when I visited. I was more inspired by what I saw in there than by Vogue; just as outrageously expensive, but things that I can imagine real women wearing without looking or feeling like fools.
I like how The Gentlewoman often photographs women in their own clothes or at least accessories and avoids trends or the outrageous. The clothes shown are often expensive too, but presented in a more realistic way and I can use the general ideas even when I have to drop the price point.