FOOTBALL FEVER: AND GOD CREATED CHRISTIANO RONALDO

Football phenom Cristiano Ronaldo strips down (yes, yet again) for Mario Testino (always!), on the June issue of Spanish Vogue, alongside Russian supermodel and girlfriend (of two years) Irina Shayk. Ronaldo, to my mind the most perfectly beautiful of all footballers, and the highest paid soccer star in the world, plays for Real Madrid and will captain the Portuguese national team in this year's World Cup in Rio.

I know many of you would have never seen Ronaldo's eyebrows in their natural glory and here they are. If you click on the T Magazine cover, you will be able to see why he has them groomed into immaculate arches at all times now. Many have objected to his Joan Crawford worthy plucked arches, but I rather like them and I think they add a certain attractive violence to his prettiness. 

THE HOWLING: THAT KIMYE VOGUE COVER

"The cover of Vogue is not exactly the Nobel Peace Prize, and Kim Kardashian isn’t exactly Pol Pot." - Tina Brown

What I think is this: That everything that is wrong in our money-centric, greedily self-promiting world is distilled in this Kim Kardashian Vogue cover. It shows that you don't have to have any real ability, to produce anything useful, to have any morals or probity, to be honoured and lauded. Vogue is just mirroring what is already happening in every dark, creaky corner of fashion and publishing.

The Cod is Everywhere!

Grace Coddington is appearing everywhere and nowhere as charmingly as she does here, on the iD cover. Promoting her new book, Grace: A Memoir, The Cod dishes the dirt on Anna Wintour in a few revealing moments:
Every so often I have lunch with Anna at her request. These days, though, I get worked up beforehand, usually thinking, 'This is finally the time she'll say, "You're getting on a bit. You're looking tired. I think you should take it easy,"' as a prelude to gently asking me to step down. In fact, the last time we went out, I dared to say, 'I thought you were going to tell me to leave.' At which point Anna laughed and said, 'No, as long as I'm here, you will be, too.' 

"I think (the Ben Stiller shot by Annie Leibovitz for a couture story in Paris) was decided upon, really, because Anna had a crush on Ben. She gets these occasional crushes - Ben, Puff Daddy, Roger Federer."

"In the end I think Anna gave up on my styling covers since I'm not good with famous people. We used to use the occasional model, but the sales difference was so marked between them and celebrities that it's now 100 per cent pop and movie stars. Fashion is just a part of what the magazine stands for today, which may be hard on old-timers like myself but is definitely the modern way. I'm grateful to have lived through the 10 years or so I did at American Vogue when fashion was the most important element."

Milan Madness: Spring 2013

PRADA

Really? Mink coats for spring? Mink coats with floral motifs? The Richard Avedon Vogue July 1967 cover of Twiggy immediately spring-ed into my head (see right). This season, Miuccia Prada showed shapes that are classic Prada: The modest shift dresses, the pencil skirts, the robe-coats worn open over bra tops and granny pants. All these were made in duchesse satin, that stiff, smooth almost ceremonial silk, recalling the label's heritage (this fabric was the star of the label's first few seasons).

This season the styles were made fresh by Mrs Prada's take on the Japanese aesthetic. I can only hope magazines aren't going to be literal next year and shoot Memoirs of a Geisha spreads - it would be too tiresome for words. Some of the dresses featured rigid folds that echo the folds of traditional Japanese dress, with the stiffness of obis, and the geometry of orgami - all of which you can read elsewhere as critics go into overdrive, but none will say, as I do here, that the folds recall more the elaborate gift-wrapping that comes from any purchase made in a Japanese shop. The outfits look like precious parcels. The floral motifs are fairly obvious takes (the LV monogramme canvas has these ancient flower icons) and could have come straight from those half-curtains you need to flick as you enter a sushi joint, as are those tabi socks worn with sandals, embellished with bows that are pure Hello Kitty.

Mrs Hince in Vogue

"She dared me to be John Galliano again. I couldn’t pick up a pencil. It’s been my creative rehab." - John Galliano
The September Issue went to Kate! On the Vogue cover, she wears an Alexander McQueen​ gown, promising an exclusive story and pictures on her wedding (by Mario Testino too, like royalty); Hamish Bowles sits us down with the all-time iconic model:I was wondering why Freja was on the cover of British Vogue - they traditionally put Kate on their September issue - and now I know why.

Love!

Deutsch Vogue ... Liebe must be in the air: Carla Bruni, 43, is pregnant with her first child by husband French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to various reports. Ms Bruni has one previous child, Aurelien, born in 2001 by a previous boyfriend.

Kate's Behind

A sneak peek at the cover of the May issue of Vogue Brazil, edited and photographed entirely by Mario Testino, with a very naked (and completely photoshopped) Kate Moss on the cover. It's a distant echoe of that very famous 1973 portrait of Charlotte Rampling by Helmut Newton, of course.

Brand Anna

Even if you aren't a fan of Ms Wintour, and I know some of you are already rolling your eyes, you should read Wall Street Journal's quite detailed piece on Anna Wintour. The story is ever so slightly foaming at the mouth, and drooling like a rabid Komodo dragon but she does warrant such response. The pictures are by Mario Testino, the court photographer/jester. He's finally found a subject that doesn't boare one to tears. Copy and paste: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200722939264658.html#articleTabs%3Darticle%26project%3DANNASARMY032320110323

This is Kate Winslet?

...After a huge pot of Photoshop Extra Virgin Oil Youth Serum, of course.

Weekend Reading List

I wish Alan Hollinghurst would hurry up and bring out his new book The Stranger's Child. I can't wait for this to come out later this year (September). He's one of those gay writers who are real writers (please contrast and compare with mawkishly gay works of Paul Monette and I don't like Michael Cunningham either), if you know what I mean. I love Hollinghurst's books. Right now, I'm reading The Spell (1988) all over again, and loving it afresh. This paperback has followed me on quite a few trips around the world, and the pages are now tea coloured, but the language is still crisp and fresh and considered. I especially like the (anachronistic) fascination with house music and drugs, which reminds me of my own clumsy experiments so long ago. I still had my big monster Mac desktop computer then (it took up most of the rosewood 1950s desk), and I had just discovered online chatting.To counter all the (rubbish) reading I'm doing about the dreadful new round of fall shows, I've turned to The Illiad (Translated by Robert Fagles). This version comes highly recommended by Uncle C as being the definitive translation; He should know, he's an academic. If you're disenchanted by all else, pick this up. Do not go and get a tattoo or pierce your ear, or whatever people do when they get bored. I saw a fat lesbian who peirced the tip of her ear in the lift today; she wore a black stud, and ill-fitting cargo berms, and I felt like leaving the lift. I don't know what it is about lesbians who like to make themselves just as disagreeably ugly as they can. I don't see the point, do you? (The painting is my Illiad crush, Patroclus, painted by Jacques Louis David in 1780; Don't even ask me why I picked Patroclus.)
I'm never ever bored.
Last Friday, after a client meeting (I grinned and nodded for 40 minutes; My jaw ached, and I'd gone partially blind from blanking out behind my interested stare), I went to Chanel and smelled a lot of perfumes from those marvellous white ceramic blotters, and talked to Ms Loy about perfumes for an hour or so. Chanel doesn't use paper blotters - they are so classy that they use these white ceramic tubes that are fitted into a tabletop and you just pick each stick up and sniff at it. Very civilized. We sniffed and talked, sniffed and talked. I went away with a new fascination for Coco eau de parfum (1984), as they haven't added to thier Les Exclusif line after Beige.
I went home and climbed on a teak stool in the bathroom, and shifted three shelves of perfumes around untill I found my bottle of Coco. I also found the matching body cream, and a bar of Sisley bath soap. I put some perfume on while still atop the stool, got down, teased out the Luca Turin perfume guide, and read all about Coco. That night, I went to bed smelling of Coco, and read all the magazines (Vogue, Man About Town, etc) which I dragged home from the office, and fell asleep at 11.You see, I didn't rush out to get an extreme hair cut or tattoo, or pierce my ears so that I can look disagreeable, or wear hideous cargo berms with hideous new trainers.
I have a closet full of perfume.
I have friends who are interesting to talk to.
I have a bed with lovely grey Egyptian cotton sheets and candles from Laduree.
I read.

Our Lady of the Crazies in Vogue Drag

It may be Vogue Drag but it's still drag!!! FongFan likes very much! She also want...I find the "beauty" spot below the eye VERY annoying. Photographs by Mario Testino. Of course she's promoting Born This Way - but no one is born with that much photoshopping, yes? She's just not very pretty is she, and you can so tell it's really eating her inside out! Photo below by Nick Knight.

Christmas Looking Things

A tartan riding habit: Portrait of a Jacobite Lady, 1770, Cosmo Alexander

Tilda Swinton, Richard Avedon

Vogue Dec 15, 1946 (Why oh why do Vogue covers not look like this anymore? Instead we get Angelina Jolie with her dreadful, carnivorous and pendulous lips.)

Yves Saint Laurent, Fall Collection, 1965 (Isn't this wonderfully whacky?)

Nativity, Giotto, 1310s (I love the blue and gold of it, and the cute donkey in the manger!)
Roger Vivier shoe, 1966 (Made by Mr Vivier for Pauline de Rothschild)

Black Swan!

The Jan 2011 cover, in fact, looks older than the May 2002 cover, otherwise, it is very much the same thing, right down to the pleated pink dress and the hair. A bit of an oversight on Anna's part?

Anna and Angelica

"China is becoming an increasingly important market. Everywhere you go there is this great drumroll that started five years ago of ‘what do you think about China?’ We decided it was time to make our own visit and to form our own opinions. In a way, American brands are a bit behind coming to China compared to the European brands, and I wanted to encourage them all to visit and open stores here." - Anna Wintour
The editors wearing specially made 'Asian' look dresses made with fabric sourced in People's Park Complex.
Li Bingbing is sooo pretty!
Vogue China editor Angelica Cheung hosted Anna Wintour in Shanghai and Beijing. Ms Wintour spoke at a forum at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, with Vogue lieutenants Mark Holgate and Sylvana Soto-Ward in attendance.
In case there's any doubt, Ms Cheung is the overdressed fatty in a bowl cut... and those dreadful cement boots.

Best Dressed Woman of the Decade

In the first list of its kind compiled by Vogue, Kate has been honoured with "The Best-Dressed Woman of the Decade" award in their January 2011 issue. (Yikes... it's 2011 already!)That's got to be one potent Bloody Mary! Cheers, Kate! Anna Dello Russo is not very pleased, because she also want.
"At every moment Kate Moss has looked chic and cool. We chose people who were thinking out of the box, women who look as if they're wearing what they really wanted to wear. No one has had more influence for the past decade on the way women have dressed than Kate Moss." - Alexandra Kotur, Vogue style director

Tom Ford

“There’s a continuity from what I was doing at YSL at the end; that’s the customer.” - Tom Ford“It’s about individuality. Real clothes, real women. For a fashionable woman aged 25 to 75. That’s why I literally put many of my own muses in the show.“I want this to be somewhere a woman knows she can go when she wants a great jacket—not a fake expensive jacket, something that has intrinsic value. I don’t think fashion has to change every five minutes. I’d like these to be clothes you can wear for a long time—ten, 20 years; pass on to your daughter. Why buy vintage when you can open your own closet!”Tom Ford and his debut women's collection as featured in Vogue December. Mr Ford’s comeback to womenswear after six years (his last was with Gucci Group) was shown achieved in top secret-style in New York on September 12. Anna Wintour should just have put any one of these images on the cover instead of Angelina Jolie. The photos by Steven Meisel of this collection were shot the morning after the presentation on September 13.