^^ The suburbanisation of Vogue & the celebration of mediocrity is what makes Vogue stale … & soulless
Agreed. The magazine that is supposed to 'lead' in this field (their thinking, not mine) is desperately chasing the trends to stay relevant.
One might dislike Testino or Weber for how they abused people but from a creative and a photographic point of view it's impossible to compare their work to that of the new generation of photographers currently shooting for Vogue.
Testino, Lindbergh (RIP) , Jansson, Weber, McDean, Sims, they all understand commercial photography in a way that these new kids will never understand it.
After all, American Vogue is a commercial magazine, reflecting the American fashion industry, which is a commercial industry. The most refined and luxurious commercial magazine, but still a commercial one.
Europe has the luxury brands as well as the creative/weird/genius brands. America has the commercial brands. That's the DNA of the magazine. So when US Vogue hires somebody like Zoe Ghertner, who regards herself as an 'artist', and makes her shoot handbags, it never really works. They hire somebody who's 'cool', put them on a set, give them a strict set of rules of how to shoot for Vogue and then you get what you get. An awful editorial.
Vogue was great when it embraced its true identity.
Now it's a confusing mess of mediocrity. A chase to get photographers with potential of making the news, to go viral, regardless of their abilities. Buy the hype. Burn it. Next!
The Tyler Mitchell stunt was epic. He had a good shoot with a megastar (Beyonce) styled by the fashion director of the magazine (the amazing Tonne Goodman). Very few people could have screwed it up. The whole thing was exploited to the maximum. The first black photographer shooting a Vogue America cover. People freaked out.
Everything he shot after that wouldn't have made the pages of Vogue's front of the book only 5 years ago.
They hired Alasdair McLellan, one poetic photographer, and made him shoot editorials that looked like last minute Zara catalogues gone wrong.
They just can't help it. They feed off the hype of the people they hire and then kill anything that makes those people remotely interesting. It's kind of funny at this point.
