I've said elsewhere, I love this new approach to the cover text - they've gone for a retro feel that also seems modern because very few magazines (apart from US Esquire) are daring to 'work' with the text like VF is doing, by placing it as part of the picture, rather than slapping a 100-word essay over a cover shot.
Sure, there are cover subjects that I don't like, but the overall redesign shows that someone in the VF office is daring to try something a little different. You have to work a little when you see the cover, you have to work to read the writing along the stem of the rose, to adjust your eye to read the wording against Gisele's limo - good. It's about time we stopped being babied by Cosmo-level covers that think we're all visual idiots.