American Society of Magazine Editors - Stories Behind the 2009 Best in Fashion & Beauty Magazine Cover Finalists

Stories Behind the 2009 Best in Fashion & Beauty Magazine Cover Finalists

October 6, 2009

Delicious | Entertainment & Celebrity | Fashion & Beauty | House & Home | Lifestyle

	*Elle, May 2009*
	This image was inspired by Elle’s Blue theme and also by a vintage Lillian Bassman photograph that creative director Joe Zee discovered depicting a model in head-to-toe-couture submerged in water. In this image Drew Barrymore wears a Dolce & Gabbana silk dress with pink floral appliqués; the result is an arresting and amazingly crisp image that reflects both the actress’ quirkiness and fashion’s fairytale aspects--while reminding us of the beauty and poetry of water.

	*Harper’s Bazaar, March 2009 (Subscriber Version)*
	In Peter Lindbergh’s photograph of Sarah Jessica Parker for the March 2009 cover of Bazaar, the actress’s silvery gray organza Chanel dress picks up the early-morning light of daybreak on the Brooklyn Bridge. The color is in turn reflected in the Bazaar logo. This is a cover that perfectly captures the energy of Sarah Jessica in the city and the optimism of the new fashion season.

	*Look New York, March 2009 (Subscriber Version)*
	Christopher Anderson’s photograph of models backstage at a fashion show for the fall 2008 cover of the semi-annual New York Look is documentary photography at its finest, using an arresting composition and bold color to create an image of abstract beauty that perfectly conveys the sensibility of the magazine. Look is less about the clothes themselves than about the fashion shows as phenomena. The image, candid and captured in-camera, yet looking like a piece of constructed art, was both a stunning photograph and a strikingly effective magazine cover.

	*New York, February 8, 2009*
	New York managed to show Kate Moss as she’s never been seen before on its "Spring Fashion" cover. The completely unretouched photo by Bert Stern strips away the glamour and artifice of the typical fashion magazine cover to reveal an almost shockingly real—yet no less beautiful—Kate Moss. For those accustomed to seeing celebrities airbrushed almost beyond recognition, with no freckles, wrinkles, or body fat, this photo was bracing, original, captivating.

	*The New Yorker, September 1, 2008*
	The fantastical image of a feathered shoe graces the cover of the September 1, 2008, Fall Style issue of The New Yorker. Ana Juan’s "Object of Desire" depicts an extreme example of haute couture, kept in a cage for its worth--and to protect it from a hungry cat.

	*W, October 2008*
	Though her head is piled high with braids and her eyes are heavily made up, Anne Hathaway appears on the October 2008 cover of W with her soul bared. The photo shoot coincided with the implosion of Hathaway’s personal life--her longtime boyfriend had been revealed as a con man--and it’s impossible not to connect that event to the raw vulnerability of her expression. Hathaway displays a strain of beauty light-years away from her usual confident, scarlet-lipped, wise-beyond-her-age red-carpet persona. But this image is no less powerful: Here she is fragility incarnate, both gorgeous and heartbreaking.