Magazine gone bad

The truth is I love magazines. I currently subscribe to no less than 5 different publications. I remember a time when I subscribed to even more.
Currently one of my favorite magazines is Elle. I consider it my fashion reading of the bunch. Every month I race through the magazine looking at clothes I’ll never be able to afford and eyeing celebrities I’ll never be as rich or as fit as. It’s fantastic fun. But I must say that I find plenty of content worth laughing over – specifically the outfits. I probably only like a quarter of the fashion ensembles throughout the magazine, and even those I’d probably never have the courage to wear.
But what gets me is the crazy getups the stylists have these models/celebrities wearing. Half of the time I can’t distinguish what the photographer wants to be fashionable from what is meant to just be an artistic photo. That’s how horrible some of the clothes are.

Take this outfit, for example. Who is honestly going out in public wearing this blue-hued, action hero ensemble?

While the above black-and-white snapshot is beautifully done, I don't understand its value as a display of fashion. The caption (which I failed to photograph) mentioned the shorts worn by the model, their designer, and the price. Hmmmm....I'm sorry, but I can't see the shorts. If you want to pay $1,200 for shorts you can't even see, be my guest.

Then we come to this photo, which was taken to appear straight out of the 70s, overexposed sunspot included. Bad quality photo + bad quality outfit = BAD.

My latest issue of Elle featured a "recycled denim collaborative spread," which featured 8 denim outfits by "today's hottest designers." Here's what the readers were entertained with:

Jean girl hiding behind the wall. At least let us take a look at the entire outfit to see if we like it.

Jean girl walking down the street. I would be shot if I wore this.

And my favorite by far. A girl with a lot of hair piled atop her head. Seriously, I thought we were featuring denim designs and not Marie Antoinette-meets-Wicked Witch of the West hair-fros.

Of course I still enjoy inhaling the contents of every last issue of Elle, eagerly ripping out pages of my fave outfits. Even though I hated all the denim outfits shown above I can at least proceed with the knowledge that denim has made a comeback. And no fashion photo, no matter how bad, will keep me from continuing to be a subscriber to my many, many magazines.