When I told my friend @friggy.pop about this series, he asked, “So, what are you going to read? British Vogue?” Later that day, I saw it on a rack. It’s likely been there my entire life, but I’m not sure I ever noticed it.
Why not British Vogue? Whatever lingering bias I had against mainstream style glossies doesn’t quite compare to waves arms at the current state of things all of this.
What are the crimes here? The photography is good. The interviews are agreeable. What you’re seeing is formulaic excellence: pleasant, repeated layout templates executed by professionals at an industrial scale. I have no doubt the editors and designers here work their asses off to maintain this level of institutional polish. None of this can be easy.
Subject-matter-wise, it doesn’t quite hold me. This is billionaire-owned, much like American social media. But, as of the print date, there are no AI-generated deepfakes in these pages. The bar is in fact that low right now. And in the current commercial vernacular, that’s a win.
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