Fashion Magazines Gone Woke

One Saturday morning years ago, back when certain sectors of our culture were at least a teensy bit less preachy and tiresome and insufferable than they are now, I sat at my kitchen table, idling through a fashion magazine. As a salty veteran of years of fashion-magazine consumption, I knew exactly what to expect: pages upon pages of uber-thin women towering on impossibly reedy legs, imperiously clutching things like massive diamonds and random cheetahs while posing in weird giant moon boots against carefully composed, super-serious artistic backdrops.

Behold, fashion-magazine readers, and do not turn away: There’s a busy New York street corner, complete with a bodega and a hot-dog stand and maybe even a pizza rat, paired with an ostrich purse that costs more than your car! There’s a repressed suburban grocery store, its blank-eyed and chiseled patrons pushing around puzzlingly empty carts, accessorized by hair curlers and Tom Ford and despair! There’s the zombie-strewn aftermath of a nuclear war, with the lone androgynous stilettoed survivor brought to you by someone like Helmut Lang!

About the Author

Heather Wilhelm

Heather Wilhelm is a writer in Texas.

One Saturday morning years ago, back when certain sectors of our culture were at least a teensy bit less preachy and tiresome and insufferable than they are now, I sat at my kitchen table, idling through a fashion magazine. As a salty veteran of years of fashion-magazine consumption, I knew exactly what to expect: pages upon pages of uber-thin women towering on impossibly reedy legs, imperiously clutching things like massive diamonds and random cheetahs while posing in weird giant moon boots against carefully composed, super-serious artistic backdrops.

Behold, fashion-magazine readers, and do not turn away: There’s a busy New York street corner, complete with a bodega and a hot-dog stand and maybe even a pizza rat, paired with an ostrich purse that costs more than your car! There’s a repressed suburban grocery store, its blank-eyed and chiseled patrons pushing around puzzlingly empty carts, accessorized by hair curlers and Tom Ford and despair! There’s the zombie-strewn aftermath of a nuclear war, with the lone androgynous stilettoed survivor brought to you by someone like Helmut Lang!