2. To what degree should an image manipulated to go into a fashion magazine?
I recently watched a documentary called "The September Issue" which basically showed the behind-the-scenes drama that follows editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and her staff during the production of the September 2007 issue of American Vogue magazine. This being a September issue, a lot of criticism had to be made therefore only the best of the best had to go into the magazine. This is because September is the January of fashion where new styles and changes of fashion are made and Vogue magazine is like the makers of fashion in both the fashion and media industry in terms of fashion.
In order to show greatness and glamour of the magazine all the pictures that are taken have to go through quite a lot of manipulation before they are placed in the magazine. First, a theme has to be decided among the team on what should be portrayed in the clothes and the thee for this issue was texture and the photo shoot was to take place in Sienna in Italy and once the photographs are taken the best ones are published in the magazine and off course certain manipulations are made to the pictures to make them magazine worth but there is a point when this goes out of hand and over board.
One of the things I did not understand at first when watching the documentary was why some of the pictures were dropped and not put in the magazine .
The pictures above was one of them and it definitely portrayed the texture theme in the clothes but I guess it was not in contents with the theme for the photo shoot which was the 1920s and I do not think dogs in the 1920s wore lion mane-like neck bracelets but to be honest it was a very creatively manipulated picture and if it were published in the magazine people would feel the same about it or maybe not since I writing this post does not really know a lot about fashion in details.
Sometimes photo shopping an image is good to a certain extent but I think the fashion industry goes over board with this type of software. In this documentary, Sienna Miller was used for the cover but it took plenty of Photoshop work to get the right picture to publish as the cover.
They photo-shopped her head from one photo onto the her body but on another photo. It’s not too morally unacceptable because it’s still the
same person but it’s not a completely factual version which although one can tell that it is her but it is not really her and it also applies to many other fashion magazines
Another thing I think is another issue under this matter is the size of the models used in the magazine. I understand that one only looks at clothing but off course you cannot just look at the clothing without noticing who is wearing them. The models are size 0. Almost no normal people are that small. It’s misleading because the viewer gets the idea that they should look that skinny, almost unhealthy. They look like mannequins. The only time they would use plus sized models, is if they were well known e.g. celebrities. That would be only to widen the profile of the magazine for example; the person who was used for the cover of Elle magazine on the left is an A list celebritiy known as Melissa McCarthy who because of her status in the film industry got to choose what to wear and that is why she chose the coat and this caused a lot of controversy as this did not portray any fashion sense at all as the coat was not fashionable which is unlikely for the plus size models on the cover of Vogue below as they had no choice in a way but to wear what was given to them as any other model does.
At the end of it all an image in a fashion magazine should be manipulated to the highest degree possible enough to lure the audience into looking and admiring the magazine and the clothes in it and in a broad sense, Anna Wintour manipulates the whole vibe of the issue because she chooses what to publish and can arrange it however she likes. I also noticed in the film that she does not hesitate with her decisions which I guess makes her good at what she does because the finished product of the September issue of that magazine really portrayed vogue as it truly is, which is glamorous.
