Vogue Italia January 2020 : The ‘No Photoshoot’ Issue

[Mercury6181]

I love Linsey’s and Milo’s, it reminds me of the vintage fashion illustration covers which I love but the other ones seem like they are trying too hard to be intellectual and are not reminiscent of fashion illustrations which is annoying as this is a fashion magazine. I feel like Farneti is trying too hard to be unique and different and forgetting the main purpose of Vogue; high fashion

 

[MissMagAddict]

I’m not bored.

 

[MON]

The Lindsey cover is okay. The rest, disgusting and awful.

how did the suits allow this to happen? Does bad taste run from the top down?

Do they honestly think this would sell? This clearly shows how the suits see their consumers - stupid and will buy anything they produce.

I wonder how this would translate in actual sales? For all we know, this might be the final nail in his career’s coffin.

 

[Xone]

Cover #2 by Vanessa Beecroft

This looks like the hangman game...

 

[tipi1355]

Hahahaha these are hilariously bad.

(However I’m somewhat like covers 3 & 5)

 

[Cute]

oof. i hope these models get an actual cover in the future.

 

[Xone]

This fifth cover is beautiful.
I have a simple question: how did the painters create the portraits if there was no shipping of clothes and travelling by models and editors? There might be a simple explanation that I can't think of but I genuinely wonder how this sustainable project was realized

With pictures...like lookbooks or Vogue Runway, with this they create their own universes...like illustrator and editor Gerardo Larrea, his work is amazing and full of fashion....

 

[Xone]

This could have been a great opportunity to showcase or reintroduce the Art of Fashion Illustration...Because it’s also an Art itself...An Art where you can actually recognize the designs and where some characteristics can be highlighted.

Farneti proves us every month that creating a magazine like France did is difficult. Franca knew what she was doing even if sometimes we believed like she didn’t (when Meisel stopped shooting the covers).
It was her magazine, her taste and her formula to make VI a force in fashion...

Farneti is just doing an « intellectual » magazine in the most pretentious way. It would have been more interesting to ask designers to draw their designs in little stories.

VI is like Chanel, Dior, Givenchy... They are all lost. They have lost their stars designers or editors and are trying to milk everything from the bases they have set up...Instead of trying to set new bases...

And the sustainability thing when nothing is going to change in the way the magazine is printed is sincerely pointless....Even more because we all know that next month, it’s back to normal.

I wish all the Europeans Editors were like Emmanuelle: stick to fashion and not trying to embarrass themselves by jumping into all the narratives decided by social media.

I hope Emmanuelle don't fall on this on her february cover.... and i'm sure VI is "trying" to do something different, and it's a process i think but at this time they should at least know their own path....i agree that they are lost...

 

[aracic]

For all we know, this might be the final nail in his career’s coffin.

Yes, please!

 

[SophiaVB]

depressing drawings wearing #sponcon gucci styled by director of #voguevalues2020 tonne goodman

LOL

 

[ivano]

Don't surprise about this post, my english still bad as always:

Editor's Letter:

One hundred and fifty people involved. About twenty flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours non-stop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras…

In the global debate on sustainability, and the values that Vogue has pledged to promote over the next decade (here you can read the declaration signed by the editors-in-chief of the 26 worldwide editions), there is one aspect that is particularly dear to me: intellectual honesty. In our case, this means admitting that there is a significant environmental impact associated with publishing a fashion magazine. The statistics above are a rounded-down estimate of what went into producing the eight stories that composed the latest September issue. Change is difficult, but how can we ask others to change if we are not prepared to call ourselves into question? Accordingly, this month we wanted to launch a message: that creativity – which has been a cornerstone of Vogue for nearly 130 years – can, and must, prompt us to explore different paths.

All of the covers, as well as the features on the following pages, have been conceived by artists who have created without travelling, shipping clothes or polluting in any way. These are fashion stories in the true sense of the term: the artists were assisted by stylists, and they have portrayed the faces of real women. But the challenge was to prove that, as an exception, it is possible to show clothes without photographing them. It’s a first: Vogue Italia has never had an illustrated cover, and, as far as I know, since the existence of photography no Vogue has ever printed an issue without including this medium.

Eight artists – both well-known and emerging art icons and comic book legends – have put themselves to the test. Furthermore, thanks to their generosity, the money saved in the production of this issue will go towards financing a project that really deserves it. There’s a place in Venice that stays open at night for students when the rest of the city switches off its lights. Called Fondazione Querini Stampalia, it is a place of art, silence and shelter that was severely damaged by the city’s flood-level water last November. We will be donating the saved funds to the restoration of this foundation, because although the magazine will return to its normal production routine tomorrow, it’s nice to think that something will remain of this issue: a small but concrete gesture. Condé Nast Italia has also made an equally tangible investment, because from today it has decided to use only compostable plastic to wrap the magazine: a substantial but necessary added cost.

On these pages, we speak of clothes that only exist in the digital world, garments that are reborn from offcuts, and items that pass from one person to another. We see how even the beauty sector is now making forays into the world of second hand. We discuss the cathartic power of failure, how fashion can help to describe migrations, gender and identity. And we find out how difficult it is sometimes to answer the simple question: who are you? The only photo feature this month is here because it was shot by two 17-year-old photographers. They are the eyes of tomorrow on loan to our present.

Above all, there are voices that are not our own, because there’s no value without a dissenting opinion. We therefore decided that it was time to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions, two in particular: can fashion, with its obsessive need for novelty and its fetish with possession, aspire to be genuinely sustainable? And is the search for diversity – which is much needed and never enough – about sincerity or tactics? The two people who offered an answer to these questions – Naomi Klein and Lea T. – haven’t made any concessions. And this, in my view, is priceless.

Emanuele Farneti

 

[amby]

Cover #7 Felice Nova by Paolo Ventura

 

[celloiof]

One hundred and fifty people involved. About twenty flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours non-stop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras…
(...)
Change is difficult, but how can we ask others to change if we are not prepared to call ourselves into question? Accordingly, this month we wanted to launch a message: that creativity – which has been a cornerstone of Vogue for nearly 130 years – can, and must, prompt us to explore different paths.

Yes, sure, it's completely impossible to do photoshoots with smaller productions and less expenses. There aren't any upcoming photographers out there working with way less than that, no. In order to any picture be made it demands at least a 70K budget and 100+ crew member, yes, I see you point...
For heaven's sake, it gets worse by the minute... What's his point? Show people that fashion is awful and people should stop consuming it since it generates more bad than good? Maybe that's what happens when you gatekeep an industry and work like it's 1990...

 

[tipi1355]

Maybe I'm losing my mind (very likely), but this idea has grown on me throughout the day.

More interestingly, I've seen a lot people on twitter absolutely praising these covers. Wasn't expecting that response at all.

For heaven's sake, it gets worse by the minute... What's his point? Show people that fashion is awful and people should stop consuming it since it generates more bad than good? Maybe that's what happens when you gatekeep an industry and work like it's 1990...

I don't think he's trying to even vaguely suggest that people should stop consuming fashion. Rather just that the industry should explore other methods of doing so. I think Farneti often shows that he's lacking in both creativity & real depth majority of the time. But he's not necessarily wrong in his message regardless of the pretentiously wrapped bow he's delivering it in.

 

[TaylorBinque]

So basically a pretentious advertorial by Gucci, the saviour of the Art world.

I just can't.

 

[Fiercification]

Remember when Alex Katz painted celebrity portraits for W in 2004 and Lori Goldstein styled? Seen this before...

The Amano cover of Lindsay is beautiful! I don't hate the concept but Farneti's eco-warrior rationale behind going for this theme is the worst...ultimately the fashion in his magazine has to be photographed using models, sets and photographers/teams that have to be flown about and yes...pollute the environment. Otherwise the advertising coins won't be heading down his path! Not to mention that you can have paintings every month, so what's your Greta approved gimmick next month then?

Perhaps consider putting out worthwhile content instead of cutting down more trees for a pile of trash no one will buy!

 

[Breathless]

If each one of the covers has its own editorial story I would actually purchase this.

 

[Benn98]

More interestingly, I've seen a lot people on twitter absolutely praising these covers. Wasn't expecting that response at all.

I'm not surprised at all. It's a great idea for Twitter to endorse because it fits right in with the current populist way of thinking. I doubt whether any of those posters saying 'this is how you do it, Vogue Italia! Hope the others follow them' have any idea how the magazine business works or how much the billion-dollar fashion industry relies on them, or who the people are buying the magazine.

It's not so much that Farneti is putting out an issue filled with artwork instead of editorials, because he's actually been playing at that since last year. There was the new art direction, redesigning VI offices with loads of art, the occasional art-only fashion editorial, and very recently he published the Twiggy edit which was half art half photography. We get it, he's mad about art. But when it's being used as part of the sustainability conversation, that makes it about as pointless as putting a band-aid on a shot wound. Because if you didn't know how bad fashion editorials are for the environment, now you do. And which green crusader can, in good conscience, continue to support that?

At the end of the day, all I get from this entire exercise is little man syndrome. My peers are putting out covers with vegan designer mums, archival Chanel, and repurposed dresses so I will take it up 10 notches even if it means cutting off my nose to spite my face.

 

[MON]

Why am I not surprised that this is praised on Twitter? That place eats up whatever false and pretentious progressive narrative you put on there.

Good thing that social media praise =/= sales. I’m having a hard time seeing how this would sell.

One thing is for sure, this no-good GQ editor has to got to go

 

[kokobombon]

Comic book collectors will get Amano & Manara´s covers, so they have a niche new market right there

anyone knows when it hits newsstands?