When I started waitressing in my first year of uni and I got, what seemed like huge amounts of money the time, in my bank acount, I excitedly went to Borders and looked outside the realms of UK Vogue, Elle and the normal newsagent stuff and bought my first issue of Vogue Italia. It has been a long on and off love affair with the magazine and has since diminished when Steven Meisel started doing excessive amounts of work for them. But when I went to see the exhibition ’50 Years of Italian Style’ at the Royal Academy of Arts which was only on for a short period of time during London Fashion Week in association with ON|OFF, the images curated from the Sixties to present day made me remember why I was fascinated with Vogue Italia back then. Why I lovingly tore out pages and laminated them to stick them on my walls.
Especially when the images at the exhition were blown up to huge proportions in a gigantic space at the Royal Academy. Photographers include David Bailey, Norman Parkinson, Bruce Weber, Peter Lindbergh, and Steven Meisel. The emphasis was on the ‘timelessness of Italian style’ and it is true there does seem to be a resurgence of that sort of glamour and sensuality oozing back into editorials seen today. I’m only sorry I didn’t post about it earlier as the exhibition has now closed and is moving onto New York, Milan and Cape Town.
(More images can be found here).
I wish I saw this exhibition! IMO Vogue Italia still does some impressive, standout shoots. Infact one of their fairly recent editorials has to be one of my all time favourite fashion shoots! To me they seem to capture a chic elegance and simplicity that I tend not to see in other magazines.
“lovingly tore out pages” lol 😉
Glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t love Meisel’s self indulgent mega-shoots for Italian Vogue. Gimme Tim Walker any day!
Firstly what is wrong with Steven Meisel?( I will always love his photoshoot of Sasha, Gemma et al dressed in white nun-ish gear and playing with robots.. )
and secondly ..
You Tore out the pages?!!!
I would never have thought that you of all people…. ;-P
Nothing wrong with Steven Meisel…. just that too much of a good thing can go bad if you know what I mean…
I must confess… I used to buy two copies…one to keep, one to tear…. that’s how overly enthusiastic I was with my initial pay cheques…
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I did the two copies too! and I do still if one gets damaged for some reason.. (carelessnesss) .. But Im more likely to go and scab full colour photocopying from Daddy’s office.. 😉
Sometimes I think in photoshoots.. couldnt live without them.. Im especially loving Inez van lamsweerde and vinoodh matadin at the moment.. wouldnt that be a great job to have,.. sigh
Italian Vogue is amazing though ..i just bought one today (the lead weight one..) and it cost me $33 AUD..thats an arm leg and 1/10 of a pair of great shoes down here.. Oh magazines. the rest of my magazines do not cost nearly as much as you…
i was meant to write “the rest of my dreams…. ”
now i just look like an idiot.
just thought id bring that to everyones attention..
wtf
looks good
Looks very interessing. Despite of my on and off love for the italian vogue it still remains my favourite! Heard about that show, but since I wasn’t in london for fashion week this time… that’s such a pitty!