Cancelling British Vogue Subscription After 10 years

[Edith1970s]

After 10 years I think I am done.

British Vogue is so different under Edward Ennifull. It was certainly dull and stale by the end of Alexandra Shulman’s reign, but it was always always aspirational. A sort of gilded world of British fashion and luxury brands, feted public figures, the high brow arts scene and sumptuous interiors.....you could escape into it with a large glass of red wine and a hot bath.

Full disclosure, I read the Guardian and the New Statesman, my DH reads the Times and The Week. We are a mixed race family (relevant because some objections to the new editor are frankly thinly veiled racism).

I don’t buy Vogue for activism. These are important societal issues but Vogue is not the forum where I would go to consider them.
I buy it for fashion, aspiration and escapism.
Don’t get me wrong it is GREAT that it is more inclusive.
But imagine buying a new Jilly Cooper novel and then discovering she is now writing a left wing polemic on the decline mining towns in the industrial Midland. It’s relevant and valid and important but it is emphatically not why you buy Jilly Cooper.
Lets not kid ourselves we (or maybe I) buy Vogue to escape the real world, not to try and make sense of it.

I've never bought it and never will because I find it as dull as ditchwater. However I think your argument is valid.

@sashagabadon

Have Vogue sales increased since EE? I am sure i read the meghan markle cover was highest sales ever? I did actuslly buy one recently with all the keyworker photos, more as a keepsake than anything else. It seemed light on content otherwise to me. The proof will be in the pudding i guess. Have sales increaed or not. I have no idea.

Co incidentally i heard ee on th radio this morning talking about blm and racial profiling and an incident when he was directed by a security guard to a trade entrance of the conde nast building.
He got the poor security guard sacked! Who may well have been BAME himself as many security officers are and certainly he was low paid ( and one of the jobs most affected by covid in % of deaths PLUS a keyworker, ironically a group appearing on the cover of his magazine!.)
Anyway i thought sacking the guy was abuse of EE's male and wealthy priviledge - surely a telling off, an apology and retraining would have sufficed?

I'd heard about this but I didn't hear that he got the poor chap sacked - that's awful, no need for it at all.

So I bought Vogue BECAUSE of him becoming editor and thought everything would be new and exciting (I’m also a leftie :) and liked the idea of activism).

But it’s not really activism, it’s highly exclusive back slapping. There was nothing for me as a leftie.... it’s basically trust fund kids and ladies who lunch. Flash photos and fluff pieces.

And yet... erm 90% of your models are STILL emaciated 16 year olds. And if you’re going for diversity then it’s a LOT of light skinned models and all of maybe 3 dark skinned models they use again and again, no real spread in looks.

AND... I can’t get over the advertising. That looks as above but worse. And the content is so heavy on ads - it can’t financially survive without them. Which in turn means heaping praise on the fashion houses that advertise with it, whether shows are good or bad. It’s like a monopoly of staid fashion houses who sell blah perfume. Vogue really is an advertising book with some crap articles. When was the last time you read an article and actually liked it?

Lastly if you want new and fresh looks go to Instagram. Not as gratifying but on timing things literally change every hour. Any fashion mag can’t keep up. Plus IG is free of the mighty pressure of ads (though still some). It lets new talent through (who don’t have to do unpaid internships in London on no money). And you can dip into a hundred different styles from all over the globe.

What is Vogue really offering?

It’d be nice to have a mag of high quality you look forward to seeing each month and page turn over a coffee/ wine... Vogue actually feels a bit too cheap for that.

Vogue really is an advertising book with some crap articles. When was the last time you read an article and actually liked it?

It's refreshing to hear people actually saying this. It's always been marketed as an "iconic" magazine and I feel like you're not allowed to criticise it without people saying you're uncultured or unsophisticated. I just don't get it.

I've never bought Vogue - it has zero relevance to my life. I'll stick with The Telegraph and The Spectator.

let's face it if Vogue really wanted to support all the -ism's they can start by addressing the content of their magazine and the wider fashion industry.

For a start they could champion a diverse range of designers, stylists, MUA and models in every single issue, istead of in "issue issues".

They could fill their pages with advertisers who also use a diverse range of designers, stylers and models, and who have strong environmental & manufacturing credientials - demand it of them even.

Stop lecturing and start leading by example I reckon. The fashion industry has a lot to answer for. I believe clothing/textile industry is the 2nd greatest polluter after oil. Fast fashion is a disaster for the planet and though its not really part of the whole Vogue thing, it is a hufe aprt of the fashion industry Vogue spearheads. Vogue might do well to get it's own house in order before lecturing its readers on other subjects.

@tectonicplates

If you really want some escapism I find Tatler gives me a few laughs, although I don't buy anything, I just read the website occasionally. It's full of aristocrats I've never heard of, so we get to learn all about how Jemima Chulmley-Featherstone held a fabulous party at her country home in the Cotswolds last week, before heading to London for a shopping spree at Harvey Nicks. But they are very British and self-deprecating, they know how over-privileged they are and they actually call each other toffs and gently poke fun at stuff. I find it just ridiculous enough to be funny.

So you read a magazine just to sneer at people?

A good discussion.
The editor is essentially making the same mistake Alexandra Shulman made except quicker. She reflected a white upper middle literary version of Vogue to the exclusion of all else. He has done the same except his reader is a woke globe trotting Millennial.

So you read a magazine just to sneer at people?

That post doesn't say anything remotely sneering . Why are so many people, especially here on MN so utterly desperate to find the worst motives in people's posts and try to shame them accordingly? I actually find it really depressing.

I have t looked at the magazine for a while but I find the Instagram account very one track

Chanel does better aspirational content

Thank you. Tatler are self deprecating. They poke fun at themselves.

Vogue tackling diversity is ridiculous. Here's who is not represented in their magazine - me. And I never will be. Overweight middle aged woman who is not beautiful. And that's ok. I'm not that bothered. But why is EE and Vogue generally interested only in a certain sort of diversity? Why only a certain look even if that certain look may now be found on tall thin black women as well as tall thin white women?

Vogue is about appearance and shallowness and there's nothing much wrong with that. I don't buy it for many reasons. I'm not interested in fashion to that extent and I don't like the fetishisation of a certain look. But it seems a bit ridiculous to make a crusade about extending the rules on appearance to include different ethnicities (which is quite right) and not to give a shit about any of the other different looks one might have because of age, or size or facial structure. Unless one decides that looks and style simply don't matter all that much in which case one would not buy Vogue in the first place.

As for EE himself and sacking the security guard - that was not a good story. Any woman who has ever been to a conference knows you don't stand near the badges or you'll be asked when the tea break is and where the toilets are. This is normal and annoying. It's not something to sack people over. It's a factor of being in a minority in a certain field and EE will always be in a minority as a black man editing a women's fashion magazine. He's the boss and if he really got the guy sacked then he's also a dick.

The editor is essentially making the same mistake Alexandra Shulman made except quicker. She reflected a white upper middle literary version of Vogue to the exclusion of all else. He has done the same except his reader is a woke globe trotting Millennial

And this is absolutely bang on.

In fact I feel like Chanel remembers I’m a woman and Vogue does not

On a similar note I heard Mariella Frostrup introducing her books programme on R4 a few weeks ago - it was a whole programme dedicated to queer nature writing.

Watching nature while being gay? Watching gay nature? When can all this end please?

@tectonicplates

Thank you. Tatler are self deprecating. They poke fun at themselves.

Exactly. Tatler knows it’s elitist and it doesn’t care. But it is sensible enough not to take itself too seriously! I don’t want to see ordinary people or activists in Vogue. Plenty of other publications do that better.

It is only fit for the fire.

I don’t read fashion magazines ; never have, but I agree with your argument about Vogue.

I do sometimes read DP’s car magazines, eg Evo. The content is similarly aspirational and escapist. People don’t read these magazines to be lectured about climate change, environmental sustainability or the evils of the global motor industry. They read them to dream about which Ferrari or Aston Martin they would spend their lottery winnings on.

A DBS Superleggera for me, please .

Agreed. It's so fucking tiresome. Spoken as a black radical feminist.

God I know I'm doing my postgrad in the field of social justice, all I want to do at the end day of reading about it is to look at frilly stuff and glorious fabric not read some pish that looks like a second year undergrad crunked it out overnight.

So you read a magazine just to sneer at people?

🤔 You might want to try reading the comment again to properly comprehend it.

@inickedyourbiro

God I know I'm doing my postgrad in the field of social justice, all I want to do at the end day of reading about it is to look at frilly stuff and glorious fabric not read some pish that looks like a second year undergrad crunked it out overnight.

Afua Hirsch who used to be on the Sky show Pledge wrote the cover story. She’s an excellent writer but she has a very urban, pessimistic London-centric view of the country - not unlike the new editor of Vogue.

I think life outside the M25 is of little relevance to Fleet Street and the glossies....

@Edith1970s I take my ill-informed comments back! I still just want to escape into some nice pictures though and not read about the same themes as we see everywhere else.

Ive never bought Vogue in my life but was thinking of buying this issue. Will have a flick through it when im next in town if i can bear to stand there for that long on a hot summer day in a mask

What if the editor was a transwoman?