Inner Monologue

I love a fashion magazine: some light reading, trend reports, essays and maybe a cultural interest piece or two. Love. But you know what I never read anymore? The celebrity interview of whoever the cover star is. Have you ever read one before? Great, you’ve read every single one that’s been published in recent memory.

Now, while I understand that in a post-Anna Wintour EIC world magazines have realized that they need to put celebrities on covers to sell on the newsstands, I subscribe; that magazine is being delivered to my house regardless of the starlet on the cover. They’ve already got my ass.

HOWEVER, it really irritates me that for practically every interview with a female celebrity, the piece kicks off with some variation of the same sentence. “‘Blah blah blah’ she says, curled up in the chair, her hands cradling a cup of tea. She is wearing a grey cashmere sweater, boyfriend jeans, and simple black flats.” Or better yet “When the waitress comes, she greets her warmly (no hint of diva behavior here) as she orders a whole milk latte and a plate of bacon and eggs. She looks at me conspiratorially ‘Should we get pancakes for the table?’” If you haven’t given up the will to keep reading (or live at all) by this point, there invariably will be a part later in the paragraph where the author will describe her “tucking in” to whatever food has been ordered. It’s honestly like mad libs at this point, I’m not not convinced they have a template for these.

Please stop. WHY, in the year of our lord 2025, are we still starting off profiles of female celebrities with a description of whatever bland-ass outfit their publicist chose for them to seem “so lowkey” and more importantly, what they ate?! I’m not here to shame anyone’s order and I totally believe that that’s definitely what you would order if someone wasn’t interviewing you (*wink*), but it seems to be one of the most outdated holdovers of early 2000s magazine culture. Seriously, why include it at all??? It has nothing to do with whatever acting role or album they are there to promote, and yet I cannot escape it. For all this talk in the last 5 years of decentering appearance and the body, why do all these magazines still include an ode to what someone is eating or drinking? And why is it only ever “tea-drinking delicate bird perched on a chair” or “look at how much food she ordered and yet is still cool”? It’s reductive to the women in the piece as much as its’s reductive to us the reader to assume this is the only dichotomy we understand and want.

If we must continue to anchor fashion magazines on the big celebrity cover, so be it; I understand that business side of moving units. But can we please make them more interesting? Sure, sell me on your latest project, throw in some quotes from industry peers about how amazing you are (as if anyone these days is going to say anything but the blandest of platitudes), or hey, get real weird and share a kooky-ass hobby. Whatever. Just please shut the fuck up about the pancakes.