Can Vogue Be Smart?

~ Laura

ImageIn the New Republic, Jessica Grose asks “can women’s magazines do serious journalism?” Grose says that Vogue, Elle, and other magazines that center around fashion, do also include great articles. She says that maybe writers who write for those magazines should tout their credentials more. 

I buy girlie magazines all the time, usually as impulse purchases at the supermarket. I do like looking at the pictures of the pretty shoes and make-up tips, but I also read the articles. And I like them. 

I bought last month’s issue of Elle. The memoir-ish article “Gone Girls” was excellent. Vogue has great articles about art, books, and travel. Actually, their entire culture section is quite excellent. Hmmm. I’ll have to go to the unicorn exhibit at the Cloisters this month. 

Published by Laura

2 thoughts on “Can Vogue Be Smart?”

  1. Yes to serious journalism in a fashion or decor or design magazine. Or blogs for that matter.

    Just because I enjoy beautiful images or well-designed objects or fashion doesn’t mean that I also do not appreciate a well-crafted argument on a particular issue or current event.

    And on the design front, here’s an amazing blog that may be new to you (it’s been around for a long time) with well written, thought-provoking posts about design and fashion:

    http://www.designformankind.com/2013/06/the-facade-of-fashion/

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  2. I was just remembering the flap over the Vogue story on Mrs. Assad.

    http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/defense-of-ridiculed-vogue-profile-of-assad-leads-to-more-ridicule/

    “In the 3,200-word Vogue story (“A Rose in the Desert”), Ms. Buck called Mrs. Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies” and described her walking through Damascus as “a determined swath cut through space with the flash of red soles,” a reference to her Christian Louboutin shoes. (The article, which was taken down from Vogue’s Web site in the spring, can still be found online here.)

    ……………………………………………………

    “Ms. Buck has spent much of her time since the dust-up over the Vogue story denouncing the Assad government, to Piers Morgan on CNN among others. In April, she told National Public Radio — by way of explaining why Mrs. Assad was a good candidate for a profile — that she was “extremely thin and very well-dressed and therefore qualified to be in Vogue.””

    Maybe Vogue should stick to pretty dresses.

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