Vogue-Fashion Age(Less) Issue
Is Youth-Biased
Vogue-fashion: “The Age(less) Issue – Vogue’s Guide to Looking Amazing at Every Decade, on Any Budget through Every Season” (August 2008) is less about age than perpetuating contemporary stereotypes. I rushed out to buy August Vogue, after reading about it all over the Internet. I had not read a copy in years. Vogue has been devoted for as long as I can remember to over-the-top depictions of fashion as art. I prefer Altered Couture. Stampington magazines value creativity over consumption and suggest all of us can make wearable art. The most innovative article illustrates the fashion choices of magazine staff who represent age groups from the 60s to the 20s. Of course, these are polished New York City uber-fashionistas who have devoted their lives to style in one of the wealthiest and most sophisticated cities in the world. The effectiveness of this article is diluted by having stick models wear the choices. Why can we not see the clothing worn by the women themselves? Why must older women be erased from popular culture?
Septuagenarians & Beyond Prove
Longevity of Timeless Style
Some older women are shown looking fashionable and very much in vogue. Author Jane Juska is svelte in her garden in Berkeley, California, in black slacks, a silky long tunic, and sculpted silver hair. Her memoir about her adventures in sex at age 75, A Round-Heeled Woman, was a best-seller.Former model Lisa Taylor Jones, 56, reveals her fashion philosophy: “1. Play to your strengths. 2. The best accessory is confidence” (p. 123). Amen and hallelujah to that. Jones cotton cabana-striped full skirt and crisp white blouse is a perfect summer outfit that would look at home in many settings. Actress Mia Farrow continues to look waiflike at age 63 (p. 197). The best photo of an older woman by far is the page-and-a-half full-length portrait of food writer Betty Fussell,81. She strides energetically across a pasture. Her white hair streams down her back – a bold move that. A beige raincoat flies out behind her, revealing a mid-calf brown velvet dress and tall leather boots. She is clutching a small dog, but her strong face and long gait express determination of a gunfighter or a wild woman of the wild west taming the land. Brava Betty Fussell and photographer Norma Jean Roy. If you want a peek at this ageless issue that is filled with images of lithe, young models in outrageous clothing, make-up and posture, save your money and go to the public library for a peek.
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