molly mary o'brien

some lady-magazine criticism

Normally the quality and substance of the writing in Elle magazine beats most other glossy monthlies of its kind: it’s less bourgeois than the articles in Vogue, and even the frilly stuff like the advice column and the beauty editors’ Botox ventures are made more palatable by its wit.  But the October issue is a bit disappointing.  One article is Irina Aleksander’s paean to the fashion sense of both Joan Didion and Chloe Sevigny; it’s charming in a bootlicking way, but the author, who looks very Sartorialist in her photo, complains that being a size zero renders her “unnoticed.”  The other piece is testimony from a formerly frumpy woman who had to upgrade her wardrobe in order to look good at her husband’s insider trading trial; for some reason, learning how to buy Giorgio Armani pants is an act of redemption for her.

It’s probably a good thing that October 2011, with Occupy Wall Streets and SlutWalks popping up all over the country, is starting to seem like a bad time to run articles in which a thin person complains about being thin and a woman with a financial criminal for husband uses $2,000 pants as a salve for her ego.  Elle’s only saving graces this month are the woman dressed as a grizzly bear and Edith Zimmerman’s buoyant article about her favorite shirt.