Three September issues dropped yesterday. Discuss the covers.
Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ’s biggest covers are here and threads are buzzing
Hi, fashion fans! Welcome back to AND ANOTHER THING.
I’m sending today’s missive from the road (OK, from a plane), so it’s a short one. But it’s about a critical topic: The most important month of the year for magazine covers!
Physically, I’m making my way home from Spain, where I was celebrating my much-better half Nick’s birthday and indulging in some new obsessions. But virtually, I’m in all my group chats dissecting the three September covers that dropped this week: Travis Kelce on the cover of GQ, Jennifer Aniston on the cover of Vanity Fair, and Emma Stone on the cover of Vogue.
Everyone saw them, right?
For me and my fellow magazine junkies, this is big. Sure, now covers are released digitally, as opposed to on newsstands, and it’s… August. But, never forget Candy Pratts Price’s famous declaration: “September is the January of fashion!” This is New Year’s Day, and hearing what people are saying is essential commentary—sort of like how my straight, older brother Chris watches ESPN after a big game. (I’m keeping this post free and comments open to everyone, assuming it doesn’t get nasty. Substack is still a nice place, right?)
My threads are going off. While we are constantly reminded of the diminished impact of print media, which I’m not arguing, these are the conversations I check before any of the others. Mom, I’ll get to you later. I’m too busy scanning captions for fashion credits.
One of these days, I’ll host a Q&A with my psychiatrist pal
to discuss how and why group chats have become lifelines in our trying times. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through a day of doom-scrolling is reading my friends' debate headlines in the comments section. Surely, you’ve seen the posts that say recent studies have shown how the best friendships are built on shared dislikes. I’ve gotten it—and forwarded it—about a thousand times.
Let’s start with Travis. By announcing his girlfriend Taylor Swift’s new record on his podcast, he’s asserted himself firmly in the zeitgeist, and the GQ cover shot by Ryan McGinley only blasted him higher. (Pun intended, yes, about those jetpacks. Don’t they look fun? Why didn’t I do this in Spain?)
Hiring Law Roach as a stylist was genius, and letting Travis hold his Birkin in a swamp? That’s brave. Is that butter leather? You did what had to be done, Law. (Tell me you get that reference.)
The DM that made me laugh the most: a friend asking if Lana Del Rey’s husband was on the shoot’s mood board. Will Welch, if you’re reading, please confirm.
Jennifer Aniston’s Vanity Fair cover, photographed by Norman Jean Roy, got a lot of hits in the DMs too—mostly because everyone loves Jennifer Aniston. As they should! Jen is the best. And she looks incredible here.
I loved that this shoot reunited some of our favorite fashion insiders, like stylist Paul Cavaco and hairstylist Chris McMillan. Chris, one of Jen’s oldest friends and the man responsible for her era-defining The Rachel cut, is also credited as a model in the shoot, which made me smile—I recognized those tattooed arms posed in front of the TV. It's a big week for Chris: Yesterday, he announced his new haircare company. Congrats, Chris!
Yes, it would have been nice if we saw her from the front, rather than the back, the side, or whatever angle that is. Vanity Fair did the same thing with Scarlett Johansson’s June cover, showing her walking away and looking over her left shoulder. Where are these women going? Who’s over there?
If anyone was wondering, my all-time favorite cover of Jen is the September 2010 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, when she was styled as a modern-day Barbra Streisand. (Chris did the hair in this one, too.) Sadly, the images don’t show up at that link, but the text and a BTS video are there. But here’s the story on someone else’s IG.
And then there’s Vogue. When Candy made her “September is January” declaration, she was talking about Vogue, specifically. The quote is from The September Issue, the documentary that followed the issue featuring Sienna Miller’s Vogue cover in 2007. (Wowza, that was almost 20 years ago!?) Fall means back to school, back to work, getting new clothes, New York Fashion Week—it’s the industry’s reset button. It’s our Super Bowl!
This cover had familiar names: Emma Stone (this is her third American Vogue cover), photographer Jamie Hawkesworth, and sittings editor Grace Coddington—your favorite stylist’s favorite stylist. Fun fact: this shoot took place after the Louis Vuitton show in Avignon in May. The day after the show, Grace called me asking about a poppy field I’d posted on my Instagram after the show. (Last slide!) They scouted it, and it didn’t work out. But I felt seen.
The simplicity of this Vogue cover is a departure from what most have come to expect in a September issue—no cover lines. Is it a gatefold? For any fashion freshmen reading this, a gatefold is what we call a cover that folds out to reveal a bigger, longer, panoramic shot, creating a long cover and glorious ad space behind it. For example, the September 2004 issue, which I worked on when I worked at Vogue right out of college, was a gatefold featuring Natalia Vodianova, Gisele Bündchen, Liya Kebede, Daria Werbowy, and Karolina Kurkova, all shot dreamily by Steven Meisel:
What none of my threads have pointed out yet is how much this new cover recalls Anna Wintour’s first-ever American Vogue cover in November 1988. That one, by photographer Patrick Demarchelier, showed the model Michaela Bercu wearing a Christian Lacroix jacket and jeans.
Anna herself has said that this image was such a departure from her predecessor Grace Mirabella’s covers (which almost always featured a tight headshot of a model or actress by Richard Avedon), the printers assumed it was a mistake and nearly sent it back. Below is the cover:
While Emma’s Louis Vuitton jacket and jeans aren’t exactly the same, and she was also shot in a studio, whereas Anna’s first cover was shot on the streets, there’s an echo there. The meta layer: Anna just announced she’s hiring someone to replace her duties, specifically at Vogue. (Let’s be clear—she’s not retiring!) Is it possible this cover was a bookend to her reign?
Also worth noting: This is the first time a September issue has been so singularly aligned with one designer, Louis Vuitton’s womenswear creative director Nicolas Ghesquière, who even appears hugging Emma in the story. (Pic below.) Virginia Smith, who runs Vogue’s global fashion department, went on the magazine’s podcast ‘The Run Thru” this week to talk about how the custom-made looks came together. (She also has a fabulous Andre Leon Talley anecdote.)
IS ANNA SENDING A BIGGER MESSAGE HERE? Maybe. Maybe not. If the 1988 cover started a revolution in imagery, does this cover announce a future in synergy? Or am I just rambling? Or both? Two things can be true!
AND WHY DID CONDÉ NAST RELEASE ALL THESE COVERS ON THE SAME DAY? So, was it intentional? Maybe. Maybe not. (Shoutout to Lauren Sherman, who asked some of these same questions in her Line Sheet column in Puck.)
Anna’s never been one to explain herself. She and Kate Moss are the embodiment of that British expression: “Never explain, never complain.” At the very least, we can deduce Anna likes covers with affordable jeans, expensive jackets, and a slice of bare midriffs. But don’t let me stop anyone from going deep on a fashion industry conspiracy theory.
Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom!
There’s more to come, too. I saw that British Vogue just dropped its cover of Michaela Cole. And soon, we’ll have Hearst’s offerings from Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Esquire. (I’m excited about my DISPATCH column in this month’s issue of Bazaar; check out last month’s if you missed it.)
I love that all these covers still get us talking. Don’t you?
Stay safe and chic,
Derek C. Blasberg
AND ANOTHER ANOTHER THING: When I thought of Vogue covers without cover lines, I immediately remembered one of my all-time favorite fashion moments. For the May 2004 issue, which was published when I was a Vogue intern, Irving Penn photographed Nicole Kidman for a cover so striking that I’ve kept it in my archives ever since.
Here it is, straight from my basement:
Happy to know that the Nicole Kidman cover by Penn where I was the sittings editor, is one of your all time fav fashion moments.
Just came here to say that I also noticed that the Vogue cover seemed reminiscent of Anna Wintour's first cover and I was insanely validated to see you also noticing what I noticed :)