5 photos in gallerySomehow Rita Ora landed the cover of Elle’s music issue. And somehow it’s actually pretty damn good. Can we assume this is because it was out of her own hands?
[Photos: Elle]
Fug File: Elle
Fug or Fab the Cover: Nicki Minaj
By now, we’ve heard that Nicki Minaj fired her styling team and is trying to simplify. So it makes sense that she’d agree to a stripped-down Elle cover, to show you a different side of herself.
And I actually think it’s a great idea. If the goal of a magazine cover is to attract people to it on the newsstand, then you want to grab them with something they haven’t seen before in a hundred other magazines. As long as your cover subject doesn’t look like somebody else entirely, I think it’s cool to make them look like a dramatic and different version of themselves as long as that self shines through enough to be identifiable. So, don’t put Nicki Minaj on the cover and jack with her face so that she looks like Beyonce or whatever, but do put Nicki Minaj on the cover and turn her into a gritty biker.
So at least this catches the eye. A photo of Nicki Minaj dressed exactly like Nicki Minaj always dresses would make me skip right over it, because I am bored of that whole shtick; this one, though, makes me want to open the issue and poke around and see what else there is. I love getting to see her face without all her marketing plastered all over it, you know? But at the same time, does she have to look so refried? Her hair comes off so wet and lank — I almost wish they’d slicked it back entirely, so even more of her face was carrying the cover — and I really don’t know why her mouth is hanging open, unless she studied for this shoot by memorizing photos of Jessica Simpson hawking perfume and shoes and booty shorts and whatever else she sells. Somehow J.Lo manages to make parted lips look less like she’s purring and/or recovering from the flu; of all the once-and-future reality show judges to copy, J.Simp is the wrong J.
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[Photo: Elle]
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Fug the Cover: Taylor Swift, with help from Alicia Vikander
3 photos in galleryTaylor Swift’s much-ballyhooed illusion-of-nudity Elle cover came out right around the time Alicia Vikander (from Anna Karenina) wore the white version of the Louis Vuitton dress to the magazine’s UK Style awards. We should discuss.
[Photos: Getty, Elle]
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Fugs and Fabs: Elle‘s Women In Television Event
Suspenders are not back. They are not back. They are not back. I’m going to say it over and over until it’s confirmed.
[Photos: Getty]
Fug file: Fugs and Fabs, Photos, Elle, Ellie Kemper, Kiernan Shipka, Christa B. Allen, Madeleine Stowe, Cat Deeley, Erika Christensen, Nicole Richie, Jenna Elfman, Maria Menounos, Mayim Bialik, Georgia King, Willa Holland, Kim Raver, Margarita Levieva, Anna Camp, Tracee Ellis Ross, Monica Potter, Sarah Chalke, Morena Baccarin, Francesca Eastwood, Alison Miller, Ariel Winter
Fug or Fab the Cover: Reese Witherspoon
We got a ton of e-mails about this cover.
They ranged from “ugh” to wondering if her daughter did her makeup, to “mind-boggling,” to wondering why she was Olsenized. And yeah, she MIGHT look a tad like Ashley and Mary-Kate’s tennis-playing older sister who runs a very tight meth lab in her country club locker. I see that. I also see shades of Erin Wasson, perhaps. But I kind of love the fierce expression on her face and the fact that they let the eye makeup do all the talking and left her lips alone, and I don’t find her unrecognizable; just… different. Enough to make me stop and look and then maybe stick around for the cover lines, which is probably a victory. Listen, it’s no secret that I need to go to beauty school, and I am CERTAIN what I am eating is making me old, so please fix me, Elle
Loading ...Fug file: Fug or Fab, Fug The Cover, Elle, Hot Right Now, Reese Witherspoon
Fug the Cover: Kerry Washington on Elle
I’m late on this one. Oops. Blame Cannes-ada. ZING. Anyway, it seems impossible and lame that this is the first major magazine cover (besides EW, but that’s a different ball of pulp) Kerry Washington has netted since Scandal blew up and made people more interested in Prada pants. Congrats to Elle for being the one to get to it, and shame on some of the other people for not booking it first, because Kerry Washington is known for having a lot of fun with fashion, and is a perfect choice for a TON of magazines (though Elle is actually a particularly nice fit). And hooray for some much-needed diversity and the championing of one of TV’s only leading ladies of color. Say what you will about Shonda Rhimes’ storytelling sometimes (I am still not over the ghost sex on Grey’s) but she’s always aced a very natural, organic multiculturalism on her shows to the point where it is never the point.
Having said all that, Kerry Washington DOES have a lot of fun with fashion, and when she’s interviewed, she seems a lot more lively and cheery than Olivia Pope — so WHY the glum crabapple aura? Let America get to know how vibrant she is. She doesn’t have to be all spirit fingers and razzmatazz, but there is some acreage between this and that.
I will say that this sexy lip stain is what I was missing in her CFDA look — maybe not that exact shade, but just a sign of life. The rest of this, though, leaves me cold. Although that is a very FANCY diaper indeed, it’s still a diaper. It’s wrinkling and sagging in the crotch. I feel like Rule No. 3 (because if I stopped to think about it I could probably think of at least two things that are more vital) of magazine covers is Don’t Let Things Wrinkle And Sag Around The Actress’s Crotch. And then we get into the fact that her left leg looks strangely prosthetic, and her face is either chilly or crankly, to the point where she seems kind of mad at me, and I don’t like to think of TV’s Olivia Pope being that stressed out in real life, and all that TEXT behind her is SHOUTING AT ME WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME and I can’t even read half of it. The price of the magazine should not be larger than half the cover lines. And why is the Web site written on there so massively? TOO MUCH. Strip it down and, to borrow from Smash, let Kerry Washington be your star.
Damn. Now I wish Smash had done a crossover with Scandal — can you IMAGINE Megan Hilty and Mellie, singing about men who done them wrong? Olivia Pope and the redheaded one teaching Katharine McPhee’s character how to be more lively than pillow filling? And Derek the Asswad Director and Fitz comparing notes on their really kind of emotionally abusive treatment of women? And Huck and Debra Messing duetting about large scarves, while Anjelica Huston and Cyrus speak-sing about trying to be the puppetmasters of a show that’s beyond their control? I mean. Feel free to fill in the musical numbers of your choice below, because since this will never happen on broadcast TV, I want it to come alive SOMEWHERE.
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