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W Magazine: A Close Reading

June 2009

W Magazine, June 2009 issue, with Ginnifer Goodwin on cover.

The following is a critique of W, a U.S.-based fashion magazine distributed by Condé Nast, international. Using low-resolution images, for the purpose of criticism, is fair use in the United States. All brand names have been pixeled out or replaced with "brand-name" or "brand-name product."

W, a U.S. fashion magazine, could never be accused of reflecting reality. One Vicky Swift, in critiquing W's columnist Louise J. Esterhazy, unintentionally summed up the magazine's position, with one simple sentence:

[Esterhazy] pretends that her real love is fashion, when it's clear that her true passion is for preserving her fossilized world of haves and have-nots.

This letter appeared in W's June 2009 issue, "Tough Love," featuring stories on "Summer's Sizzling Jewels," a "glam art party" full of "diamond-clad customers" (91) and a column by Esterhazy lamenting that the economic crisis has made women "afraid to look chic or glamorous," women who forget that "even spending a little money...can make them feel better" (108). The letter (24) is sandwiched between an ad for a $20,000 watch and an anti-aging skin cream.

Ms. (or Mr.?) Smith makes a good point, but she fails to mention that the magazine is guilty of Estehazy's crime too. Fashion magazines are not about fashion, but about something else entirely.

page from June 2009 issue of Marc Jacobs.

The classism in fashion magazines, and in W Magazine in particular, is so obvious we're almost blind to it. It's doubtful what a super-exclusive prep school ("School Ties," 52-4) has to do with the fashion world, unless children's education is a kind of accessory, or why the "recession" is routinely described as a sort of malaise on the "social set" (50), not a crisis which retards millions of people in their efforts to survive. That would be the world of the "have-nots," which do not seem to exist in this magazine, except in passing mention.

In the USSR, citizens would sometimes find out about a recent infectious outbreak when the government boasted of the success of a new vaccine. W Magazine employs the same strategy. After the obligatory sentence on business owners "bemoaning staid spending habits," a puff piece on nightclubs (which have what to do with clothes?) talks about how at one club, "patrons—who have recently included [a short list of celebrities]—have been racking up more $20,000 tabs than ever." Though the story is technically true, the picture painted is distorted and misleading.

What's also remarkable, despite being common knowledge, is the low content-to-filler ratio of W magazine. There are 22 pages of text in a 108 page magazine, including pages with a paragraph of text and a large graphic, which are little more than subtle advertising: "Brand-name achieves high-drama contrast with a statement diamond watch..." Priya Rao coos over a $102,000 watch on page 42. On the pages of photoshoots, in addition to listing the clothes, W has inserted "beauty notes," like "Shoulders stay smooth and soft with brand-name product" (63) and "Perspiration stains can ruin a silk garment. Avoid them altogether with brand-name product" (85).

A beauty note, from W's website. Brand names have been pixeled out.

Women, who make up 80% of W's readership, are encouraged to spend a lot of money, and on a pretty regular basis, lest they get "out of season." They are encouraged to look perpetually young (9, 15, 25, 49), wear extremely expensive jewelry (10-11, 27, 38-46, 56) and timepieces (13, 23, 29 and backcover). It's hard to find even a single product with a two-digit price tag. The magazine is practically an ode to massive consumption, with only token references to the environmental, societal and psychological costs of materialism and great wealth.

The net effect of the magazine is to increase envy, decrease self-esteem, and to stimulate demand for a luxury lifestyle. "[S]tores are desperate to get men and women to buy," even if they have to make them feel like crap in the process. The whole atmosphere is aptly described in Lily Allen's song, "The Fear":

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they're trying to find them

...And I am a weapon of massive consumption
And its not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah we're on to a winner

W's readers should want "loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds," even if "people die while they're trying to find them." Dead africans are an acceptable price to pay, so long as auteurs can achieve "high-drama contrast with a statement diamond watch" with the products of their labor (42). Similarly, the recession only matters as far as it affects the "social set" and the "art world," while the real casualties of the economic crisis are reminded to "treat themselves," that "even spending a little money on a lipstick, a scarf or a pair of socks can make them feel better" (108). Materialism is serious business, and only the real big spenders can get a voice; but if the lower orders fail to do their part, they must be gently reminded to do so. After all, how can the right sort of people party if the have-nots aren't "programmed to function"? Pandemonium would ensue!

The real love of W magazine, and of most fashion magazines, isn't fashion; it's for preserving the "haves" against the have-nots, through a subtle combination of snobbery, flattery, selective reportage and self-esteem assault.

Because of this, fashion is linked, in most people's minds, with brand names, skeletal women, and the kind of pretentiousness seen in the photo below:

Ginnifer Goodwin and two dudes.

As W's "resident aristocrat," Esterhazy's column might be seen as slightly tongue-in-cheek. But the subtext is deadly earnest. "I think the only thing that can make a woman happy is maybe a pink dress," she quotes Albar Ebaz in the second-to-last sentence. Of course, a pink dress--or a black dress, or a purple dress, or a mesh dress--has never made anyone happy, male or female, but it takes someone of profound shallowness--and a magazine with no sense of morals--to seriously advocate this perspective. W magazine is such a publication.

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