First of all: how adorable is James Wilkie?
What a cute little muffin he is. That hat kills me.
On to more important things. How adorable is her dress? (Imagine that being said in, like, a totally different intonation than the previous, rhetorical question of adorableness.) I know a lot of you in Fug Nation hated it — and I admit that I wonder what this outfit would look like if the dress were not of the maxi persuasion — but I kind of dig it. It’s easy. Breezy.
Loading ...Speaking of Cover Girl, let’s take a look at SJP’s August Vogue cover:
Because NOTHING says “AUGUST” like a COAT. NOTHING. I get that they’re prepping for Fall — thanks to the headline over her torso — but COME ON NOW. Another COME ON NOW to her face. Now, don’t get your knickers in a twist — I accidentally just wrote, “your knockers,” and I suggest you keep them untwisted as well — I actually quite like SJP’s face. Her regular face, you know, the face she walks around with all day long. I think it’s interesting and has character and is lovely and comfortingly familiar to those of us who remember being Square Pegs mega fans. I don’t want her to do anything to her face. Which is why I think it’s INSANE how Photoshopped it is here. Listen, A Dubs, we all know that SJP is old enough to have some wrinkles. She OUGHT to have some wrinkles. A lot of the ladies reading Vogue ALSO have some wrinkles. WRINKLES ARE NOT THE END OF THE WORLD ON A 45 YEAR OLD WOMAN MY GOD. What IS the end of the world is making a kind of iconic face look like it just fell off a Fem-Bot.
Comments (71):
I love how it’s the age issue and yet, the cover girl is ageless!
Re: top photo: The dress is cute, but the blazer killed it for me. And the shoes (which you can’t see here, but are available on TLo’s blog) look kinda cheap. They’re not, I’m sure, but they look like the white version of some very clunky pleather sandals I got from Target back in 1999.
Re: the cover: That belt looks like it’s made out of black licorice.
Blazer is definitely a killer. Too big, to saggy and hits her in all the wrong places.
I read “your knockers” twice and was then confused about the correction. Whoops!!
Just watched First Wives Club on TV during laundry night–I think I think SJP **is** Shelly and have no other opinion of her. Shoot me, I didn’t watch SitC.
Yup. Fem-bot is right. And it also looks like a botoxed-up drag queen version of her.
I also like SJP’s face the way it is normally. Vogue is just an insult to women everywhere for doing that on the Age issue. I’m 25 and probably have more wrinkles than SJP does on that cover.
That belt makes me stabby in ways photoshop never could.
The cover is the first time I have not been struck by her (I’m sorry) horsey-ness. The first dress might be nice if I could see how it’s kept up- elastic band strapless? (yuck) Spaghetti straps? Cap sleeves? Halter top? The jacket does not exactly work here, although in motion, maybe.
I just hate using kids as accessories. The hat needs to go.
There are people who didn’t like that dress? It makes me want to put it on and lounge in an Adirondack chair in the Hamptons with an Arnold Palmer.
And while I completely agree with everything you said about the cover, I covet that sweater coat. It’s making me excited for cooler weather clothes.
Apart from literally removing every single line from her face, they also appear to have shaved off part of her chin. How creepy is that?
Is it just me or does her hand look teeny tiny on the cover? Especially when you compare it to the size of her head. It may just be the angle, but it looks like a weird doll hand.
Aw, Vogue photoshops everybody, young, old, whatever. Even Kristen Stewart (20? 21?) got “perfected.” They made her fetus-sexy.
Like her dress (though it needs to be hemmed) and her son is adorable – looks like he’s come straight off the set of a “Witness” remake.
As for the cover, SJP really should avoid the slicked back hair/severe up-do look. It’s just not complimentary to her face – makes the angles of her nose & chin more noticeable.
I LOVE this look. So simple and easy. I like the blazer in theory, but it could be a few inches shorter at least. Even as a “boyfriend” blazer, it’s super long. And then I guarantee in person she looks even more like a kid swamped in her mom’s clothes. I’m 5’2″, so about her size, and I can just see it now how utterly ridic I would look in that blazer.
Good lord did they photoshop-f-ck her face. I mean…who is that person? Her face looks like an egg it’s so smooth. I do love the jacket though. Very Chanel-y. The belt? Meh.
And they definitely photoshopped her hand. HA!
“Simple secrets that turn back time”………yes, Photoshopping!
That is somebody else’s mouth. I am obsessing. Maybe January Jones’s? SO WEIRD.
Also, she is clearly listing to one side because someone slapped her on the head with an extra epaulet. I can’t remember the last Vogue cover I saw that was styled un-insanely.
Holy hell. That Vogue cover is awful. And yes, agree – WRINKLES are OK. GEEZ.
P.S. SJP’s maxi dress on the RC with her cute son was a win for me!
Is it just me or does she look like a stewardess ?
Oh, dude, in addition to the wrinkles, the Vogue cover photoshopped away a third of her nose. I swear, it’s crap like this that keeps the Anti-Aging cosmetics industry alive. WAY to set up false expectations (in women AND men) as to what a 45-year-old woman should look like. Boo!
Re the top pic: I had that bag in 1988. The whole look is so overwhelmingly ’80s to me — gah. I cannot go back there.
Did the stylists at the Vogue shoot just tie an extension cord around her waist or what?
I think SJP is homely, always have. That cover does her no favors; the slicked-back hair draws attention to her very sharp features and long face, as Libby points out. But I do like the dress in the first photo. My own favorite dress is a maxi dress in a bold print, so I like seeing others out in the world.
Her son is indeed cute. I like his sneakers (something about little kids in sneakers delights me. I think it’s that sneakers are decidedly play clothes, and so often nowadays, little kids’ clothes are just shrunken versions of grownup clothes in a way that screams “Not for playing!” which I find depressing). I do wonder what he’s doing there, though.
I like the premiere dress. Clearly, she’s there for her kid to see the movie (I know they’ve gone to HP premieres before and they don’t cart him out for any kid’s movie, so I’m guessing the child has extremely good taste), and she looks cute.
@Chelsea: oh, this is the Harry Potter premiere? Makes sense for James to be there, then.
That dress is absolutely perfect! …..for pizza and happy hour mai tais on the deck at the Tiki Lounge after a long day of beach and sightseeing. Not the red carpet.
The differences in her face & hands from the red carpet picture to the cover are insane. She looks good for her age in the top photo, in the bottom photo she looks 20.
Amen sista’!
EEK! her HAND
I read that heading on the cover as “185 ways to dress up your fail”…
Joining in the “love the dress, hate the blazer” chorus. I generally hate any garment that suggests “blazer” before evoking “jacket,” as a rule, and this blazer is about as blazery as they come. Ick. Still voted “love,” since you were asking about the dress itself.
And I’m totally with you on the hack photoshop job. I will always love SJP for not messing with her nose and for resisting the temptation to butcher her face in the name of “youth,” and I’m rather miffed at Vogue for not showing her as she chooses to be. Besides, if they don’t want a 45 year old on the cover, they shouldn’t put a 45 year old on the cover.
Easy breezy, perhaps, but neither beautiful nor Cover Girl.
Everyone knows the cover girl is always photoshopped, but it at least shouldn’t be THE MOST OBVIOUS THING about the photo. In this case, it was the first thing I noticed, and it doesn’t even look real.
Imagine for a moment you are walking down the street and you see someone with a rubber hose-possibly licorice belt. and a big rubber watch and epilets. hmmmm. Who thinks of this stuff???
76% yes says that Fug Nation mislead you.
I like the dress. Different jacket and shortened so she doesn’t step on it and I’d like it even more. Who is that Amish kid with her?
James Wilkie looks like he is contemplating some form of mischief, which is the proper expression for a boy his age.
The de-wrinkling of SJP on the magazine cover does not bother me as much as the radical changes they have made to her bone structure. This is a woman who not only has very strong features, but OWNS them. To whittle away at her chin & nose…there are no words.
Vogue gave her someone else’s hands, too.
Those are NOT her hands on that cover. Her hands are scary now. But I like the dress, even with the blazer.
James Wilkie looks like he’s preparing for his role in a Tom & Huck remake. Someone mentioned that those are not SJP’s hands on the cover, and they are clearly right – why did Vogue put her on the cover if they wanted to change pretty much everything about her appearance?
HATE the eyeliner! And the makeup in general on the Vogue cover. SJP has strong features–I personally like that her face is unique and she has never felt compelled to f**k with it–and this is too harsh. Plus, way to name-check Square Pegs! I approve.
I LOVE the dress! It’s Oscar de la Renta and I WANT it. Although she is a bit too short to wear a maxi with that pattern. That being said, she looks lovely but I hate the blazer with it. Sometimes theaters are cold… I get it… but it almost looks like she borrowed Matthew’s jacket.
The Vogue cover is really unfair. I love SJP’s looks, very unconventional and not classic beauty but beautiful in her own right, and they really missed on this one!
I know I’m in the minority, but the outfit she wore to the HP premier makes me think it was a Chico’s kind of day.
If they popped that coat out on the November issue, I’d be totally down, but as I’m hiding in my girl-cave of an office avoiding the over 100 degree heat today in South Carolina, I can’t even wrap my brain around a long-sleeved anything.
i like the dress. but frankly she always looks like a tranny, so there’s that. i have seen her in person several times, and without photoshop she would not be on the cover of anything, because YIKES.
Plus I think there’s a leech on her head …
That is way harsh, Tai.
I can’t look away from her lips… The way the shadow crosses her face and illuminates just some of the color on them? I just want to send her some chapstick…
And I doubt that that is even her (photoshopped) hand – it must be the interns.
If they set photoshop on STUN for her face, they set it to KILL on her hands. There’s nothing wrong with veiny hands, especially if you are thin, of a certain age, and work out a lot. But to make hers look like plastic? That took some photo editor a very, very long time.
Hello. Look at the hands in the picture on the red carpet and then the hands on the cover. Those are not her hands. I’m not sure you could photo-shop her hands to this smoothness. (I’m not dissing her hands, I’m just pointing out that the folks at Vogue must think their readers are too dumb to notice this big of a discrepancy in appearance).
Also joining the “love the dress, hate the blazer” crowd. If the blazer had been a little more fitted, or a little cardigan or something, I might have been OK with it. It just looks too sloppy and unfitted over such a loose and flowy dress.
The jacket on the Vogue cover is beautiful, but not for August. I refuse to look deeper than that, because the Photoshopping scares me.
I seem to be alone, but I loathe maxi-dresses as a rule. They look frumpy, even on gorgeous, leggy girls. I’ve had several friends who’ll say something like, “Oh, she [gorgeous, 8' tall, model type] looks fine!” My response is always that if a gorgeous girl merely looks “fine,” what do the rest of us look like? Stop wearing them – they’re terrible! And you always look like you’re about to tread on the too-long hem. Yick.
That cover is alarming. She is well respected for aging gracefully. Don’t take that away from her!!
Look, SJP has kind of a wackadoo face, and manages to be gorgeous and charming nonetheless. Which gives the rest of us with wackadoo faces some hope. SJP, thank you for owning it. Vogue, I sigh at you.
As for the maxi – I’m generally in agreement that they almost never work, but this one really does. She looks adorable, and real, and like the model for a Mom who is chicly fabulous without trying too hard. Love.
What’s with the Huck Finn hat on SJP’s adorable son?
Echoing the “love the dress, hate the blazer” mentions.
The cover photo is weird, like it’s her, but not her. WAY too much photoshopping there!
I am all about the maxi dress/skirt this season and I love the one she’s wearing. The blazer with it is GREAT!
Her son looks like Elijah Wood circa 1992. That’s all I could see.
I think that some celebs bring their kids places as accessories, but in this case I don’t think that is the case. Because we are best mates.
No, because I don’t think I have ever seen her bring her kids out to an “event” before.
Oh and I love the dress – even like the jacket. Yup, a fan of the entire photo. More so of the ones w Mr Broderick.
Am I imagining things or does it look like they styled her hair to give her a shark’s fin head? I guess they didn’t think she was pointy enough?
I guess I have something wrong with my eyes, because everyone here and on TLo have been complaining about that blazer looking big and not fitted and “borrowed from husband” looking, and the first thing I thought was “What a stunning, well fitted blazer! I want one!” Seriously, the blazer makes the look for me. It is a scosh long, but I think it looks like a riding coat, something to cover the bum, ya know?
And yeah, that cover. For shame. Why can’t a normally aging woman look like herself?
I think she’s beautiful. Always have, always will. She’s a classy, successful, vastly talented lady, and she can MOSTLY do no wrong in my book. I hope she’ll bring back the big big hair from before. LOVED it.
First and foremost: Gotta love sweet baby James.
Next: I think SJP is pretty great and is not afraid to try things. Personally, I’m not crazy about the blazer-thrown-over-anything look. I guess I think red carpet outfits should be more/look more planned. Still, she carries it off better than most.
I think the Vogue cover is pretty unfortunate. She is not a traditional beauty, but she is so much prettier than this. Severe hair, weird hat/fascinator, unflattering angle for her head, it looks like they remade her right eye and the right side of her smile in Photoshop and erased every line, wrinkle and any indicator that this woman has real skin. Plus I just don’t get the look of the coat — it looks like a military llama. Everyone bows to a certain editor at Vogue, but how many times have we fugged the cover???
And I’m reaally hungry for licorice right now. Between the belt on this coat and the macaroon purse from the Reese Witherspoon post, my diet is shot.
i actually love the dress. she looks like a mom with a bit of fashion sense. i’m puzzled by the jacket, but that’s because i’m here in south where we feel like we’ve been set on ‘broil’ and covered in a wet wool blanket. and he is a sweet little muffin.
hell yeah!
but, as I wrote on your fb, I just can’t get into the blazer with the maxi dress or even most of the rash of blazer wearing.
Blazers just seem deadly to me, and the lengths look weird, unless you are in a Cake song, and wearing a short dress with a long jacket!
SJP is amazing, unique and lovely, and I’ve always thought she looks most stunning with her hair pulled back–no one looks as great in a tight updo she does!
Not to be horrible, but I don’t particularly care for SJP’s face. But I REALLY don’t like what they’ve done to her on this cover. Yikes. I’ll take the real thing over that alien face any day.
Ugh… to the Vogue cover. Not sure if they took a picture of her or dressed up a wax dummy and called it a day…
Seriously, I really like the knit coat/jacket/whatever on the Vogue cover. I just wish it wasn’t belted with something so licorice-looking that I half expect Charlie Chaplin to be eating the end of it in a black & white movie somewhere. And the photoshopping has just made her look like a creepy psychedelic cartoon character I’ve seen in a 60′s art book. It is giving me the heebie-jeebies big time.
Jessica, thank you for appreciating SJP’s interesting looks. I get so tired of the “horsey” comments made about SJP by people who think everyone should have pug noses and not enough room in their craniums for foreheads. But I digress…
I like the maxi dress and I don’t even mind the blazer (because hello, movie theaters get cold sometimes), but I would like to see what it looks like without the blazer. And the kid is cute — I like his Tom Sawyer hat. The kid has personality, and why wouldn’t he with the parents he has?
Cannot handle the Old Navy mannequin hand on SJP. I’d rather see her normal-sized, veiny hand than something that looks like it would melt if held too close to flames.
Additionally, cropping off her left arm was a fairly poor choice, but I’m guessing they maxed out the retouching budget on the rest of her and figured they’d just chop off what they couldn’t fix…
omg, i really think they did photoshop her hand!! she has really really old lady-ish hands…veiny and gnarled….serious!
I have always loved/respected/admired SJP for not allowing Hollywood to erode her features a la plastic surgery! Why is she allowing Miss WIntour to photoshop her well-deserved wrinkles? Miss Winfrey always reminded us “Aging is an privilege”. Why do we insist on treating it like a curse? “The Age Issue”. Right…
http://inherentstylela.blogspot.com/
Ha! They gave her a Barbie doll arm.
Forget about the Photoshopping, which is only expected these days, even on a twenty year old. The photographer could easily have found a better angle and pose at which to photograph her. Isn’t the idea to make the cover model look as good as possible. Could it have been that difficult to simply start with a better photo?