US Harper's Bazaar June 2002 : Christy Turlington by Patrick Demarchelier

[mikel]

My favourite cover from the Glenda era

 

[Lola701]

From 2002 to 2007/2008, her magazine was great and then it turned cheesy.

You can only realize the greatness of a magazine when it’s timeless.

Yes the look is very of the time but nothing about this is dated. The same cannot be said about magazine from today.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ …But the tacky cracks were already evident even then, with that (poorly rendered) heinous gradient graphic design trademark of hers… Just when I thought the gradient eyesore was finally gone for good— along comes Rafael and his even more amateur gradient eyesore to replace Glenda's— applied to the images now that can’t be separated from the photography LOL

(Nothing will have me wishing for Glenda's return. Long may Samira reign.)

 

[MulletProof]

^ I'm not even up to date with Samira's work but yeah, Glenda wasn't great, this was the kind of magazine you used to settle with when you couldn't get better (my case lol), or when your fashion demands were that vanilla. It only looks great in retrospective, and when you look at the current state of fashion publications, but, as with anything, it's always good to see what else was happening at the same time and in 2002, the bar was high... very high, you had A LOT of independent designers and magazines that were doing fantastic stuff (Dutch, i-D, A, The Face) and pushing people like Glenda to rise to the occasion and do better than what she, as seen later, does when there is no pressure nor expectation.

This year was also a pretty decisive one because right after the attacks (during NYFW), a lot of designers completely changed their collections (e.g. Ford's Gucci S/S 2002) and the tone of both editorials and clothing seemed to swing between very relaxed and peaceful, to very intense, bold and often politically charged as 2002 is both the tragedy and the WMD/'are you with us or against us' s*it show that quickly followed it. When you absorb that a bit, and see for instance, Pop's Spring 2002 cover, Klein's Dutch July 2002... and then you look back at this and our girl with her little 'just the way you saw it on the runway' stories (the stories w/ Gisele and Carolyn), you just know it wasn't a better Glenda, she was trying and doing her best.. but she was still super mediocre for her time.

 

[Phuel]

^^^ Maybe being just a tad facetious, a bit dramatic, and a little exaggerated when I wish Samira to reign long LOL

Her efforts are unfortunately, usually, always reliably bland/boring/depressing— but the potential for a straightforward, unfussy, no-nonsense sort of grownup woman is what puts her ahead of all the desperate-to-be-down-with-the-chidlren editors. It’s a sensibility that I’ve always been drawn to: Juergen’s BTS shots of Helmut’s shows— or Bruce’s easygoing but ultimately stunning beauty of men and women, where the few clothes are just props (as opposed to the other way around). That sort of getting dress in 30sec and another 60sec to snap that shot and it’s perfection, rather than 3hrs to style and makeup a look, and another 5hrs to take the photo. That’s the potential of Samira’s direction. Unfortunately, she’s surrounded herself with rather lesser talents thus the results usually fall (very) short.

But these are such lesser fashion days. When Glenda took over at Bazaar, it was absolutely the height of fashion’s golden standards: Such highest of high standards would inevitably signal the plummet to the lowest of low standards that we’re in these days. It was the photographers/stylists/models doing the heavy lifting for her Bazaar, because again— that “graphic design is my passion” was evident even back then with her LOL