Fashion mags

I love fashion photography. I love the sick carnal stories they tell, especially the big names like Gucci and Prada.
I'm looking thru the September Harpers Bazaar- Fall Fashion. Just like People has the "Star Tracks" in the beginning, fashion mags have the expensive brand- name ads. Thats really all i like- the muffin- tops of the magazine world. Yet somehow when you make a purely muffin- top magazine, like Star or Us, it is less satisfying than just reading those first 15 pages or so. The quality and texture depreciates. But, on the grand scale, when youre comparing, say, staring at a pelican for an hour and celebrity magazines, it's only a slight difference. I'm still waiting for them to come out with an all fancy pants fashion ad magazine. Sure, there's filler but its worth it.
This season Prada has a kind of severe dominatrix headmistress clutching her big black bag. Behind her is the shadow of another similar creature, giving the idea that there are many of them residing in this blue shadowy other world- all sitting around like iguanas.
Next it's the Gucci hippies, dancing around in a drug- induced trance. smelling flowers sexily.
TODS's clothes are all- American and hideous as always but they do have Gweneth Paltrow as their model. They even made her look bad, though.
The Chanel Girl has found her way to an empty room from a hip party in a run- down victorian mansion. She is Just Too Cool. She looks like she is ready either to have sex or a conversation, I wonder if that was her script.
But here is my favorite- Dolce & Gabana- they're doing this plaid thing for fall. I wish you could see it. It's like a big rich inbred family having a winter vacay at the Kensington's Lodge.
There's the two bratty younger cousins in the center. The dopey family hang- around/ worshipper who's in love with the oldest sister is holding a horse with her. The young gay writer and his boyfriend, the jock cousin who might or might not have hooked up with him, but has had a thing for, like, forever with the spunky red- headed. This is the type of family immortalized in "the Royal Tannenbaums"- totally messed up and insular. You are disgusted and yet want to be one of them. The older cousin who lives in a soap opera, and might or might not be gay, Victoria! It's so dramatic. How can you not get sucked in to their twisted lives filled with love and deceit.
Oh, and I love the Blumarine Girls- total Burning Man freaks, in their tutus.
I'm obsessed, obviously, so don't take my word for it- but I saw these photos in an exhibit of "radical NY art from the 80's"- where the guy had taken a set from an advertising shoot and shot his takes from slightly off kilter. The effect was to de- stylize the stuff they were selling- if you look at it all from a different angle all the desire and magic deflate and it just looks, well, totally lame.
That was my favorite. Someday I'd really love to do that with all those red carpet and celebrity "star Tracks" shots- just take the picture from over their shoulder. Either that or gloss up and stylize pictures of my friends going in and out of convenience stores. No one could look as bad as Britney.