The Awful Truth

Why am I nervous? She’s a woman just like me. She’ll understand what I’m about to say. Or will she? She’s only the most powerful woman in fashion. Like she’s going to care what I have to say! But I’m also a dedicated reader of her magazine, so she has to care what I think right? Well, I guess we’ll see…

Thoughts raced through my mind as I waited for – and half dreaded – my meeting with Anna Wintour to begin. A woman of her status could squash me like a bug – ruin my entire fashion future – in a mere moment. Regardless, I had a bone to pick with her. Who does she think she is putting 18-year-old girls in couture dresses I couldn’t afford even if I saved a lifetime? Lately it seemed as if flipping though the latest Vogues was no longer as thrilling as it was discouraging. The models were getting younger and the styles more outlandish as the issues went by. I mean seriously, who would ever wear a string of baseball-sized pearls and cut their hair in the shape of a triangle? The inspiration I used to gain from studying my favorite magazine was no longer there. All I saw were pages of unattainable nonsense.

Coming to this realization was heartbreaking. Getting my monthly issue in the mail used to be a sunny morning after days of gray. A light at the end of the tunnel. A round of martinis on the house. But these days the articles seemed more and more over my head. I’ll never spend a weekend in the Hampton’s with my friend Elle McPherson. My 21^st birthday party certainly wasn’t a week-long extravaganza that consumed the attention of my millionaire friends. And I’ll never have to worry about what having a “manny” will do to my family’s father-son relationship because I’ll have to raise my own children when that time comes. Just who exactly are the people these articles pertain to? Because I sure as hell don’t know any of them.

As a 20-something professional with a decent disposable income, I resent the fact that Vogue is no longer a magazine that makes me love, appreciate and buy fashion – it’s now a magazine that makes me feel bad about all of the fabulous things I’ll never have. “Pretentious elitism” is what my mother calls it. Is she right? Is that what the magazine has always been, or has something gone terribly awry?