UK GQ July/August 2020 : Billie Eilish by Danielle Levitt

[Benn98]

 

[jal718]

Worthless

 

[GivenchyHomme]

If Nickelodeon Magazine existed in 2020 this is exactly what it would look like.

 

[Benn98]

Such 'styling', done by her own team in this case surprise surprise, shouldn't be allowed on any magazine cover. No wonder all her covers look like same. Are magazines that desperate that they'll allow her to use her own stylist just to get her on the cover? Yikes!

 

[tigerrouge]

Wasn't Dua Lipa on last month's cover? Two female musicians in a row for a men's magazine.

 

[KoV]

That awkward moment when the “oral history of the Espresso Martini” sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than the cover feature.

 

[honeycombchild]

Wasn't Dua Lipa on last month's cover? Two female musicians in a row for a men's magazine.

And two female musicians with their clothes on too. How times have changed.

 

[RedSmokeRise]

I know it’s her thing to look grumpy because of teenage angst but you can also look grumpy while smizing !

 

[aracic]

She's so beautiful and I truly respect what she does with her personal style and the message behind it (loved her short film titled ''Not My Responsibility''), but when she's doing fashion work I'd appreciate it if she allowed herself to be a bit more experimental and, well, fashionable. I understand that teens dress like this, hype beasts love some baggy trash, but teens don't dictate high fashion (correction: shouldn't). This applies more to Vogue than GQ, but even in GQ I'd love to see a different side of Billie, something we haven't seen before.

Inez & Vinoodh did a nice job transforming her for V Magazine although it wasn't my personal taste and I didn't like the actual outcome, it was something different. The photography is extremely pedestrian as well, I bet her own brother would've done a better job if they played with a camera around the house. Painfully mediocre! It's going to be a really long month stuck with all these terrible double issues until we're able to see something new.

 

[Benn98]

UK GQ July/August 2020



Duh.

Photographer: Danielle Levitt
Stylist: Samantha Burkhart
Hair: Mara Roszak
Makeup: Robert Rumsey
Cast: Billie Eilish









UK GQ Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

UK GQ July/August 2020

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Photographer: Morelli Brothers
Stylist: Luke Day
Hair: Frank Galasso
Makeup: Natasha Severino
Cast: Jordan Barrett, Hailey Clauson






UK GQ Digital Edition

 

[KoV]

I really like the photo used for the subscriber cover as well as the photo with the mirror and the cat statue, but it still feels like a bad fit for GQ.


Still, I'd take Billie in GQ over "all dressed up and nowhere to go" any day. Good God. Vile.

 

[Benn98]

From Dylan's letter, which in this issue is some 3-page wankfest on how Billie is more than just teen angst, Billie is younger than Madonna/Germanotta were before they made it big, Billie is distant yet omnipresent, Billie and her brother, Billie, Billie, Billie blah blah blah. Skimmed right through the faffle which reads like it was penned by some demented stan until I got to this part which made me snigger for the sheer delusion. I mean, he literally contradicts himself starting with 'I didn't want to pander to her own' and finishing with 'we wanted someone who could capture her unique style rather than create one for her'. Also, these images are NOT 'quintessentially GQ'!

'We obviously needed to try to pictorially capture Eilish in a way that hadn’t been done before. Most editorial photographs of her have tended to fall victim to the clichés of contemporary celebrity portraiture, either by pandering to her own, almost indelible, age or by fruitlessly attempting to reinvent her. We knew there was a third way – there is always a third way – and our Creative Director, Paul Solomons, found it.
“My first thought when I knew we were going to shoot her was trepidation, if I’m honest,” he says. “We are so used to searching for original, unique ways in which to photograph our cover stars that, when it comes to someone such as Billie, who is already so unique and original, it presents a daunting task. When you have someone who is already so in control of her own style and image, the best thing to do is make the shoot feel as unforced as possible. The key was to make sure she was going to be photographed by someone who was easy to get along with, someone completely at ease with shooting in a very natural way. My job on this occasion was to choose someone who could capture Billie’s unique style, rather than try to create a new one for her, and also to make the images quintessentially GQ – which is what Danielle Levitt has done. I’ve always loved Danielle’s images, as they always feel so unique, unforced and fresh.” Just like Billie herself."

 

[8eight]

hahahhaha ie, Billie wouldn't agree to any styling or concepts so we had to do this.

 

[KoV]

Billie’s refusal to switch it up in magazines has got me thinking, lately, that perhaps she’s right. She’s a musician with a large, young fan base and a carefully cultivated image that sends (I think) a positive message but also seems to genuinely reflect her own taste and personality. She is not a chameleon, she is not a model. Perhaps the real issue is we’ve gotten so used to celebrities replacing models in fashion magazines, that we expect glamour, fantasy, couture, and visual storytelling from a singer promoting their concert ticket sales or album. And this expectation seems to only apply to female celebrities. No one would question, I dunno, Harry Styles in GQ styled mostly in Gucci, even though that’s no less a departure from his personal style than what Billie’s wearing here. If you like a celebrity enough to pay $8+ for a magazine they’re in, you probably want them to be recognizably themselves. If you like fashion enough to pay $8+ for a magazine, you most likely want the fashion editorials to feature professional models, not celebrities.

tldr version: Bring back the models and let the celebrities be themselves.

 

[Benn98]

Billie’s refusal to switch it up in magazines has got me thinking, lately, that perhaps she’s right. She’s a musician with a large, young fan base and a carefully cultivated image that sends (I think) a positive message but also seems to genuinely reflect her own taste and personality. She is not a chameleon, she is not a model. Perhaps the real issue is we’ve gotten so used to celebrities replacing models in fashion magazines, that we expect glamour, fantasy, couture, and visual storytelling from a singer promoting their concert ticket sales or album. And this expectation seems to only apply to female celebrities. No one would question, I dunno, Harry Styles in GQ styled mostly in Gucci, even though that’s no less a departure from his personal style than what Billie’s wearing here. If you like a celebrity enough to pay $8+ for a magazine they’re in, you probably want them to be recognizably themselves. If you like fashion enough to pay $8+ for a magazine, you most likely want the fashion editorials to feature professional models, not celebrities.

tldr version: Bring back the models and let the celebrities be themselves.

In some cases, celebrities actually fare better than most working models nowadays. So I'm not totally against them covering fashion magazines. I'm more irked at magazines giving away control to the point that they've allowed her to be shot in her favourite brands which would never be considered under normal circumstances. Especially when you factor in the underrepresentation of London brands in British GQ, part of Dylan's duty btw because he's tied to the BFC. All of that, just to 'trend.' If that's what you have to do to stay alive then maybe it's time to rethink your business model.

I don't need to see Billie Eilish being herself on a GQ cover. She's got her own platform on Instagram and those want to see that sort of thing can go there. And what's more, it's not even as if she's doing such a special job of promoting all these covers. Who gets their first American Vogue cover and post it only with the following: 'cover of Vogue March issue', lol. Who acts up (insider source, which trust me, I believe!) when Nick Knight is about to shoot you for the cover of the 2nd most profitable and widely distributed Vogue in the world? And then, couldn't have been bothered to post that cover on her socials? Someone who doesn't understand the value of a Vogue cover, that's who. And again, not her fault. It's the magazines who pander to her every whim and bend over backwards.

 

[avonlea002]

Whenever I see her on a cover, Domestos comes to my mind.

 

[FashionMuseDior]

I can't get tired of Billie, she's such a beautiful girl and I like how she's always styled, not your typical cookie cutter.

 

[Annie Hall]

I understand she has a sensitively cultivated image, but surely they can think of something more than oversized neon menswear to show how angsty and rebellious she likes to think she is. You can argue that she's trying to stay true to her personality or aesthetic or whatever but I'd question how much anyone's authentic personality lends itself to dressing exclusively like a middle-aged man on MDMA from 2002 lol.

 

[Phuel]

^^^She’s not only a carefully manufactured and strategically-branded product for full-optimization to profit off the suburban tween market, she’s incredibly vapid as a musician. Unlike a true teen talent like Lorde, this one doesn’t write nor produce any of her music. She’s really no different than Avril Levine. And this dull insistent on always sticking to her signature Bratz-doll-does-indie is so transparently corporate. I suppose the days of pop princesses playing with their image for fashion stories is just too risky on their not-too-bright tween stans just freshly weened off Shawn Mendes. Even Justin Briber may be too intense for these types.

Shame her handlers are so conservative with her brand; she's a gorgeous young woman and the potential to play with a host of dramatic personas for Vogues would have been exciting.