Traditionally, the role of a fashion magazine was pure inspiration.
Every story in every issue was intended to take readers on a fabulous journey to exotic lands featuring the world’s most beautiful women wearing the world’s most fantastic clothes. When I dive into the French and American ELLE archives from last century, this charge is obvious. Creativity seeps from every page, and everything feels exciting and provocative and so enviably new. These days, fashion magazines still need that quality – particularly in the main fashion “well” (as we call it in the biz, where the big shoots live nestled side-byside without any ads to interrupt the reverie) – but today’s time-poor, uber-efficient, type-a personality (you know who you are) also demands something else: she needs instruction, guidance and for someone to not only tell her what is in fashion but to actually sort through the thousands of pieces available, tell her where to buy them and how to put it all together (for day-to-day, and not in that way that’s beautiful on the page but crazy-lady if you wore it in real life). In short, she needs our fashion editors to be both her personal shoppers as well as her dream weavers.
At ELLE, I think we’re especially great at straddling this dual role. While our fashion team throw their creative energy into the big fashion shoots designed to open your minds and whet your appetites – fashion editor Emma Kalfus’ “The Simple Life” story featuring Isabel Lucas on p102 is a particular favourite in this issue – just as much effort goes into the ELLE Manual, our monthly instructional section that aims to put a personal stylist into your own wardrobe, deconstructing a particular category, editing the market to find the best pieces, and showing you exactly what to buy and how to wear it. Of course, anyone can go online and see innumerable pages of merchandise and instructional fashion content. But none of it is put together and selected by the ELLE team, the same people who are sitting front row at the collections, seeing the clothes before they’re anywhere near the stores and creating those incredible, inspirational stories. It’s an expertise and an edit you can’t get anywhere else. It’s information we could never offer within the fashion well or on a simple still-life page, and it might not take you on a journey to anywhere other than the local shopping centre, but goddamn it, it’s useful. Even for someone in my role, who is surrounded by fashion every day of my life (and many of the nights), sometimes I just need it all laid out for me, particularly when it comes to those two wardrobe makers/nemeses: swimwear and, of course, denim.
Ignoring swim for the moment – because it’s April and we can happily stick our heads in the sand for another six months – is there any item of clothing so anxiety-provoking as the humble pair of jeans? I’ve been looking for the perfect pair for about, oh, at least the past 20 years. The object of my hunt changes constantly (right now, it’s a straightleg, slim, cropped, vintage-washed blue), but no matter what style I’m looking for at any given time, I feel absolutely sure that when I find it, my wardrobe will be complete, I will always have something to wear, I will feel whole, and probably be better at flamenco dancing and sudoku and keep my house tidier. Thankfully, I have this month’s Manual on p64 to help me find them.