Vogue Czechoslovakia December 2018 : Kirsten Owen by Michal Pudelka

[Srdjan]

It breaks my heart when an editor-in-chief can't write in her mother tongue.

What do you mean?

 

[Deleted member 130879]

She is not part of the creative team, if I'm not mistaken.

She is credited on the website as Creative Contributor.
O Vogue CS | Vogue CS

 

[RaisinBoy]

What do you mean?

The editor's letter lacks content and cohesion. It's a pastiche of words and sentences with no meaning. Quite appropriate for this edition.

 

[Your Anchor]

For the 1st cover- The Hypebeast-ish aesthetics for such magazine like Vogue does not work for me
2nd- what they trying to say by this cover? simply pointless

 

[GivenchyHomme]

People don't do their fashion history homework and it's evidently a problem as here we are now, year 2018, with people just talking because talking is like oxygen, there and free. I know, 2008 was a-m-a-z-i-n-g and Natasha Poly and Anja whatever and yadda yadda (uh huh) and before that a bunch of things happened and before that bunch of things, the 4-8 Supermodels that make a comeback every 3 years and made a lot of men horny in the early 90s, yeah, but before THAT and during their painfully commercial bombarding of editorials in Vogue, restaurateur adventures, Playboy appearances and the like, women like Kirsten were doing far more experimental work for Japanese designers and publications that were defying what I just mentioned and creating a path for what models can do and for photography and the impact of stories that everyone just takes for granted now (because Meisel or some other fool did a watered down, for-dummies version where your big high fashion expectations are rooted on lol) and guess what? she did not "convert" or tried to grab opportunities to finally have her 'big commercial break', she has, since before many of us were born, worked consistently with people that were trying to think a little bit outside the box. Know decades, social context and the value of creators at the time and then suggest some of these crucial players have done nothing to receive minimal exposure in a small publication everyone bashes for inexplicable reasons every month. It's not perfect (I guess? never flipped through it), but gotta love the 'Vogue is too commercial! trash! so safe!', and when it wanders off that path it's 'too damn pretentious'.. you're looking at V-O-G-U-E, my friends, do you expect a refined, mind-blowing drink when you open a can of coca-cola? you don't, just be thankful they add cherry from time to time.. (here).

Simply No. We're not expecting perfection. What we are expecting is originality and not vulgarity or gimmicks. She has Warhol on her *** for gods sake! The second one she has a sh*tty expression on her face. I don't understand the context of that. This is pretentious because they're using Warhol as their selling point. It's a cheap exploitation. Come up with an original concept please! This is not US Harpers Bazaar! Overall Kristen is playing second fiddle here. If a cover is a flop we can discuss why. I never say something is flat out hideous without providing explanation as to why I think so. This is a forum after all. I wish some members would take advantage of that and go more into detail about why they like things or why they don't. This is a fashion community and we do have expectations and we praise and critique subjects. If a cover is bad, it's bad. That's all it boils down to.

 

[Benn98]

Come up with an original concept please! This is not US Harpers Bazaar!

Thank you! I said this a while back, mediocrity is so normalised in fashion media nowadays that people lap up, and in this case even go so far as to defend, any bit of scrap tossed their way showing the vaguest form of overblown pretension. The new wave of indie-style direction which us ungrateful peasants should be so 'thankful' for is as contrived and formulaic as an issue of US Harper's Bazaar. We now have Italy, Ukraine, Portugal, Poland, 'Czechoslovakia' , Brazil, Arabia, China, Australia, Germany, Russia and Korea all following the same cover concept. And they all apply it with the same monotonous precision of a factory label printer. And naturally, as with every new order, a standard (VI) will have been established which one can compare the work against. That's how it works when you're inundated by the same crap from every corner.

Kirsten Owen shouldn't make an awful cover appear less awful only because she's some underrated OG who went against the grain in the early years of her career. Or whatever her trajectory or reputation is. That's a strain of model fanaticism! You know, @MulletProof , that age-old cancer which has been plaguing this forum since it's early years (don't test me on this!)? If a cover is awful from end to start, then people should have the right to call it exactly that.

 

[Perickles]

Simply No. We're not expecting perfection. What we are expecting is originality and not vulgarity or gimmicks. She has Warhol on her *** for gods sake! The second one she has a sh*tty expression on her face. I don't understand the context of that. This is pretentious because they're using Warhol as their selling point. It's a cheap exploitation.

Obviously you don't know anything about Warhol because all that you are criticizing actually represents Warhol's art .

 

[MulletProof]

That's a strain of model fanaticism! You know, @MulletProof , that age-old cancer which has been plaguing this forum since it's early years (don't test me on this!)?

Nice try. One would think that by referencing the "early years", you would be able to distinguish regular talk about fashion that inevitably involves knowledge on models/body aesthetics and disproportionate/borderline creepy affection about any of the thousands of models out there that had no particular association with any designer or movement. I said why she's relevant (and nope, didn't say "early years", I said she's been consistent throughout her career, but hey, say I've had a crush since she "slayyyyyed opening for Balmain".. whatever helps). Wish this was a debate but it's not, just a ton of years digging through fashion files. In a few years, trust me on this one, it will be easy to say something insane like Yohji Yamamoto was cool in 2010 and didn't do much else.. and you'll want to shove a soap in their mouth and submerge them into dirty waters but also maybe carefully (but without much time either because.. lazy fools) walk them through the 80s for a second.

I haven't said anything about the art direction of the cover, just talked about the relevancy of the person featured here. I don't care much about magazines (or fashion) these days. Or Warhol, ever. If someone called it breathtaking or godawful... I suppose it can be both or likely nothing, it's Vogue....

 

[Deleted member 130879]

@MulletProof Patronizing much? I think almost everyone here knows who Kirsten was/is (and not only her, but the whole troop of mid to late 90s models), so no need for fashion history classes. The issue here is not Kirsten, no one is questioning why she is on the cover of this third tier Vogue, as no one questioned when she appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia. I really don't know why you are exploding like that just because most of us find these covers a joke. The latest Vogue Italia cover with Freja got a lot more criticism (with Freja's choice being questioned) and no one went there calling people ignorant.

And don't bring Yohji into this. Knowing who Kirsten, Tasha or Rosemary were has nothing to do with knowing the importance of Yohji, Rei or Issey. Don't compare models to revolutionary fashion movements and groundbreaking designers.

And sure, I would rather be talking about other long dead magazines than about Vogue, but since these new Vogues are all trying to fake some outdated cool factor that they just don't have, allow me to drop my hammer of criticism on them since this is, after all, a forum to discuss and criticize fashion.

And I repeat: with Kirsten or without Kirsten these covers belong inside an i-D spread not even its cover. Why would you use a cult model for this random joke? I don't know. I really don't know.

 

[artemovartem]

This magazine is unnecessary.

 

[MulletProof]

@MulletProofno one is questioning why she is on the cover of this

Yes, and it wasn't you, didn't see your post and didn't see the Vogue Italia cover either or didn't pay much attention on whether this was loved or considered to be a joke (said that in my previous post), so.. relax, no one is taking away your right to talk fashion, in fact, what you consider "exploding" is actually a [not so common anymore] discussion on the relevancy, not of the cover, but of the person on it. I don't need to be reminded that this is a forum where you actually discuss fashion, I never came here for models...

Wanting to make someone (especially a fashion designer) untouchable is never a good idea. I am surprised you often disagree with people that find models useless and replaceable for the most part (as I do) but simultaneously strip them from a role in "revolutionary" stages of fashion. They can be as vital as a photographer, especially in campaigns. And Yohji isn't so above any other area of fashion or any other form of design that he should not be compared, don't make him so repulsive.. and neither is Rei (who may have built something but happily contributes to one of the most toxic expressions of fashion these days). Some of the photographers and models they employed at their most creative time have probably passed the test of time intact, unlike them..

 

[Deleted member 130879]

Wanting to make someone (especially a fashion designer) untouchable is never a good idea. I am surprised you often disagree with people that find models useless and replaceable for the most part (as I do) but simultaneously strip them from a role in "revolutionary" stages of fashion. They can be as vital as a photographer, especially in campaigns. And Yohji isn't so above any other area of fashion or any other form of design that he should not be compared, don't make him so repulsive.. and neither is Rei (who may have built something but happily contributes to one of the most toxic expressions of fashion these days). Some of the photographers and models they employed at their most creative time have probably passed the test of time intact, unlike them..

I'm not making anyone neither untouchable nor disposable. And yes, as you say I am vocal about the importance of models in the fashion process. Sure, the models had an important place in the "anti-fashion" revolution of the 80s and 90s (I don't enjoy the term anti-fashion but, unfortunately, it is the most commonly used to refer to that particular change in fashion) but you can't compare the importance of Yohji and Kirsten. Fashion would probably be very different today if it wasn't for the Japanese in the 80s. And yes, again, Rei lost it and Yohji isn't groundbreaking anymore but they were key players and changed fashion forever. I believe fashion wouldn't suffer that much without Kirsten. I would even go further and say there were more important models to the movement.

So forgive me if I don't agree here, if I don't think that people that like fashion have to know who Kirsten is. She is a cult model, in my opinion, which is very different from being a famous model or even an important model. There are very few models that I would say to have been effectively important to the course of fashion (and I'm not found of most of them, not even Kate). And, as you can see by my avatar, I have a very deep love for most of those 90s girls. The girls that were more The Face and i-D than US Vogue. I just don't expect young fashion people to know every single one of them.

Again, I do believe this conversation goes way outside the main issue here, that is these covers. With of without Owen.

 

[helmutnotdead]

wow, some people have a lot of free time...

 

[MulletProof]

^ someone writes paragraphs in a forum and not "lb!" or "first!", shocker..

I believe fashion wouldn't suffer that much without Kirsten.

Or any model. The difference between someone that is academically trained and someone that just reached some degree of exposure for being long is pretty clear (and almost tragic) to me, but there's also a difference between a historically important garment and the person who made it. Both, within their own territories and capacities, have shared timelines, impact and have nurtured transformation. It does not mean you are comparing a brain to a piece of fabric, just reaffirming their role.

Same feelings about Kate and think it's a similar case there, you don't have to know, or even to appreciate, but if you don't know, then why the effort to undermine what you don't know..? especially in such a small and flawed publication like this one allegedly is? makes no sense.