American Vogue September Issue 2012
Every year millions of women wait for Vogue’s September issue to hit the newsstands. Since August I have been pestering newsagents all over London to find out when the magazine was due to arrive. In an industry that releases magazines a month before the actual date written on the front cover (yesterday I bought the October issue of InStyle), I was quite pleased when realizing that American Vogue was releasing its September issue in the end of August, giving me something to look forward to, content that I couldn’t immediately find online.
Anyways… Finally, on the 31st of August I was thrilled to find the Lady Gaga cover amongst other fashion titles in my local newsstand. Shelves usually stock about 5 copies of each magazine, but in the case of this massive fashion bible there was only one copy that fit. I finally reached for it and… Wow, okay, I knew it was going to be heavy but this was r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s. I tried to flick through the glossy pages and felt very uncomfortable manipulating over 2 kilograms worth of paper (almost 5 pounds).
I like carrying fashion magazines in my handbag and flicking through them on my way to work or during my coffee break but the thought of doing so with Vogue seemed like an impossible mission. I was very eager to read through Vogue’s edit of this season’s key pieces as well as the interview with Lady Gaga (to possibly change my mind about her), even eager to browse through the ads… but all of a sudden buying a magazine 916 pages long, 658 of them being ads, sounded very very stupid. Can I be bothered to find the content? The search through endless ads to find one article sounds more like a treasure hunt than simply easy reading and unfortunately I find the ‘treasure’ hidden in most fashion magazines less and less appealing.
I know postal workers are also complaining about the weight of this year’s September Issue and subscribers are very annoyed to find a collection slip in their mail boxes instead of the actual magazine (it doesn’t fit in most mail boxes). As someone who loved flicking through fashion magazines from a young age, I wish that publications would deliver a product that was practical to carry around instead of a massive pile of paper that has to be dragged back and forth. Fashion magazines are not coffee table books, they are meant to be carried and shared, even ripped apart for inspiration, not a heavy heavy weight on my shoulders.
x Natasha
Tags: vogue
The Daisy Chain 