I only buy glossy mags if they have a decent free gift with them, the mag will be glanced at, possibly an article read, but that’s it. I couldn’t afford the clothes they show, much less (at 6’2") fit into the blasted things. I’ve gotten a nice range of bags (trans: purses) over the last couple of years
Usually I avoid the fashion magazines.
When I read them I glanced through the fashions and basically went “I would never fit into that, it’s too expensive and it’s ugly. Does anyone actually wear this stuff? That looks really uncomfortable.” etc etc
So on average if I read a magazine, it’s usually a parenting mag that caught my eye with some article, or a news mag or Reader Digest.
Considering that I usually read at the doctors office, that’s usually what they have and I read.
Hetero/slightly metrosexual male checking in.
I’m probably a minority, but i’ll flip through these magazines with my female friends. We discuss the styles rather then the fashion. It’s a subtle, but important difference I think. on top of the clothes, it’s noticing the little things that are done that can be really utilized in the real world. It’s all about the accessories – a bangle here, a flashy Oring tie-belt there, a hair accessory here… etc.
If i’m flipping through the magazine by myself I tend to do the same things – as well as check out the women. I do this cause I enjoy shopping, and I go out and shop with/for my female friends often.
To my knowledge none of my friends compare themselves to the models in the magazines, but rather they do as I do, and check out the styles.
I think Bradbury had the right idea for the wrong books. Let’s burn all the fashion and pop-culture, airhead magazines. Just dump 'em into one big pile, cover in lighter fluid, and burn, baby, burn! Who needs all that crap about how you should look? What you must buy? It’s gross! Can’t anyone just be his/herself? Is that so terrible? IMHO,
You know, today on the subway, I saw an attractive woman donning plain canvas tennis shoes to work (where most of us change into our dress shoes since the walk of a commuter really tears up the nice shoes.) Cool! More people ought to get back to basics! - Jinx
Marie Claire is the only one I read with regularity, and then I read it for it’s 101 ideas section, predominantly.
Basically I just like to get ideas for outfits. Occasionally I’ll see something that makes the 102 model look fat and I’ll roll my eyes and think “If she looks like that, any normal woman would look like a HIPPO!” but that’s about it.
Honestly, I’ve never been made to feel bad about myself or by body by reading a fashion magazine. I recognize that my case is not the same for many women.
This just about perfectly describes my reaction to these magazines.
Except with the addition that since I’ve been reading my husband’s “Maxim” magazines, I’ve realized that there is nothing comparable for women, and it makes me sad for us.
Hetero female who’s subscribed to Vogue for 20 years.
I read it for the articles. No, really. I also like looking at the pix as pix, more than for what is being portrayed. I will sometimes roll my eyes at the really haute stuff, as well as at the skeletal society women who wear the clothes IRL (or what passes for it in Manhattan), but generally I’m not looking at the clothes as anything that has anything to do with my life or what I wear.
Same here, ToC. And only then if I’ve run out of crosswords tucked into my purse.
My reaction is sort of anthropological crogglement. These women apparently live in a whole 'nother world from mine. I don’t necessarily disdain them, I just don’t get the entire premise. Chalk it up more as bemused puzzlement.
The clothes are weird, when not downright ugly, and ludicrously overpriced. The models are, well, consistently skinny. Some are beautiful but the tortured hair designs and constipated-camel facial expressions pretty much detract from the effect. If the weird clothes and hair can make even beautiful women look grotesque , the mind reels at what they’d do to ordinary women.
I really, really don’t get the casual, chatty mastery of the huge array of name designer stuff. I can’t imagine the sheer investment of time and energy required to recognize X shoes, Y handbags, Z shirts, etc. Good grief! Do people actually pore over this stuff to the point they can spot minutae? It sounds about as rewarding as memorizing a Spiegel’s catalog. Obviously it can be done…but why would anyone want to?
I can see where you’re coming from, Jinx, but the urge to beautify seems damn near universal. The fashions in the magazines can seem ridiculous, but they’re no more ludicrous than elaborate medieval wimples, Elizabethan farthingales, or Victorian bustles. Men and women have always made themselves look silly for the sake of fashion. Should this be the case? Maybe not, but good luck trying to stamp it out.
When I look at the fashion magazines, I think Hey, that girl’s really pretty! Why would anyone wear anything like that? Oh, that’s such a cute outfit! You know, that girl looked better in the “before” picture than after her makeover. Why would anyone where that much makeup? Wow, I wish I looked like that in a bathing suit., and a bunch of other random thoughts along those lines.
Not only do I read Cosmo, but I trapped my husband into marriage by using their ten easy steps to *Get A Man Now! *. We have explosive mind blowing sex every night thanks to their *Better Orgasms Now! * series and he would never be unfaithful to me because I have the low down on him thanks to their well thought out Is Your Man Cheating On You and now have GPS sewn into his wallet, underwear, car and implanted on his molar when he was sleeping off another earth shattering orgasm.
Shirley Ujest: Buahahahahaha!
I only ever buy women’s magazines at the airport, but I read other people’s when they are lying around.
Looking at the fashion pages, the thoughts running through my head are as follows: “She’s pretty, sh’e attractive, she looks like she’s got toothache… oh no, why did they have to revive the 80’s?, why have they got her posed in that stupid way so that you can’t see the clothes?”. As for the rest: “10 tips to a better orgasm? I’m over 40, I know that stuff now, thanks; 10 tips for younger looking skin? Yeah, I just bet I’d look like that if I pay huge amounts of money for that cream/had extensive plastic surgery/was born stunningly beautiful AND was airbrushed so that I had no wrinkles and no pores; 10 tips for a better bod? I’ll tear that page out and keep it - nah, I’ll never get round to it; oooh, chocolate: lets get some of that!”
If I want to see what’s fashionable this year, I look at the shops. It’s their job to interpret the cat walk for me.
The men I’m interested in claim they want to show me their 10 tips to a better orgasm because I’m intelligent and interesting and sexy, not because I look 20 years younger and have a perfectly toned body (and I choose to believe them, rather than the magazines).
And here, free of charge, and with no pics of skinny pretty models looking anguished, is my advice for a better sex life AND how to feel better about your body: invest in an intelligent, interesting, sexy man!
When I gave up Sluts R Us mags, I found my self esteem improving.
If I do read one ( in line at the store or at the dentist office) I try to find some stories to amuse myself with. The ads and the clothing are for about a -3% of the population in wealth & size.
Because when I look at the models who are either pissed off or have that come-hither-deer-caught-in-the-headlight-look that make college boys (apparently) cream their pants all I can think is Wait till she has kids, gets a mortgage and a desk job.
Um . . . I buy them for the articles . . . yeah, that’s it, the articles.
I hardly ever read them, but when I do, the thought process goes something like this:
Ad, ad, ad, damn fugly ad, who do they think is going to buy that?, hmmm, I bet you gotta get a Brazillian to wear those pants. Embarrassing stories about having sex in public places…wonder why they’re having sex in public if they’re embarrassed about it? Oooh, ways to up my come-hither quotient. Damn, that hurt! One of these days I’m going to learn not to drink soda while I read these things. I wonder how much Dr. Pepper I’ve driven into my sinuses snorting it out my nose like that? Maybe that’s why I have so many headaches. More ads. Uck, one of those damn perfume ads came loose and now my eyes are itching and my chest hurts. Great. Ten secret moves guaranteed to blow his mind. Done it, done it, everybody over the age of 19’s done it, he’d hate it, he’d hate it, I’d hate it, we’d both hate it, done it, done it, done it. Those don’t seem particularly secret, since I’ve known about them since I was fourteen. Ad, ad, ad. Cheap chic–bargain couture, only $400/outfit. Yeah, only. Do I even own $400 worth of clothes all total? What every man secretly wants. Oh, this ought to be rich. I’d better put down the Dr. Pepper. Bwaahaaaahaaaa. I’d better get Dr.J to read this, he’ll piss himself.
A little off-topic, but I shop from catalogs almost exclusively. My sister or my girlfriends will come over and we’ll play a few rounds of “Love it! Hate it!”. Just go page by page and diss all the ugly clothes that are being passed off as every day fashion. There’s usually about 10% or so that are really cute (and I try to buy all of them 
) and the rest is hideous crap.
And another thing. Has anyone noticed the plethora of teen-aged girls that look like “constipated camel” models (to steal from TVeblen)? I have a theory. It’s due to the slicked-down, very tight ponytail hairstyle. I believe these girls are suffering from tight hair syndrome and need to just let their hair flow naturally a few days a week. I believe they’d all be happier and more relaxed if they just wore it down once in a while.
I believe Nicole Kidman suffers from TPS. So much so she is starting to looking like she’s had a freakish face lift or is turning Japanese.
Joo got dat one right, Shirley. There are others, too. Man, do they look uncomfortable!
I, like lots of the other ladies here, have this gut reaction:
“Gawd, who would wear that? And why would they want to? And where would they wear it, anyway?”
I didn’t look 17 when I was 17. I certainly don’t look 17 now at the age of 37. I have never been tall, slender, or particularly beautiful, so my reaction to the “fashion” in those pictures is “It wouldn’t fit me even if I wanted it to.” Maybe it’s sour grapes, but it also saves me from spending $1500 on a pair of shoes.
<mild hijack> Some of the parenting magazines are the same way. They show little kids wearing cashmere jogging suits, sitting in a pile of dirt playing with a flower. And you too can have your child dressed cute like that for only… and you flip to the back page where they show the credits, and that cute little cashmere jogging outfit from Niemand Marcus is only $120!
Uh.
My kids wear almost exclusively thrift-shop and yard-sale fashion. On Saturdays, the kids stay home with daddy and mommy goes hunting-and-gathering, leafing through the racks at the local second-hand store, or driving from sale to sale. They wear mostly Gymboree, Hanna Andersson, Baby Gap, Baby N, and so on. I like the quality and the designs better than the ‘cheaper’ brands (which cost the same at thrift-store prices anyway). But I wouldn’t buy an Olily outfit even if it presented itself for $2.50 (except to resell on Ebay) and there are a lot of Hannas I wouldn’t pay money for either. Ugh. Ugly. Fugly, no thank you, yuck.
I am grateful to the people who pay new prices for these clothes, that I might buy them slightly worn at pennies on the dollar, but I don’t know how they afford it. And when I look at placement ads for things like ecru cashmere jogging suits for toddlers, I wonder why they afford it. Is it a need to keep up with the Jones at daycare? Is there some subtle or not so subtle competition among the parents of kids in Jimmy’s classroom, to make sure their kids are dressed in brand new designer clothes every day, or else the child will be teased cruelly? I am at a loss.
</hijack>
I have sometimes watched ‘fashion shows’ on television, and boggled at what passes for fashion. Sometimes they appear to create clothes that have no functional purpose except to be displayed on a runway, since you’d be arrested for indecency if you wore them in public. Or be stared at, and not in a good way. Or maybe even have people point and laugh. So I have no real use for Cosmo or any other fashion magazine. I can’t afford anything they have to sell, and haven’t the body even if I did, nor anywhere to wear those things to. My time is better spent with Sunset or even Real Simple.
Thanks, I’m learing stuff I didn’t know! 
OK, so, let’s see…
• Decent number of utilitarian “Oh, look, apparel!” responses. Especially in combination with a factor I didn’t mention (me being oblivious to this concern): “OK, so this is the fifth photo from different apparel houses all showing that funky new collar, this is the new fashion trend.”
• Goodly representation of “Hello, Ms. Photoshop”, accompanied by :rolleyes: and the unintended introduction of carbonated beverages to nasal membranes and/or computer screens. Sort of a “fails-to-be-utilitarian” assessment. Ridicule. I do not need this silly stuff, thank you very much, etc.
• Some “Gee I wish I looked more like her and less like this” / “that’s why I don’t read Inadequacies-R-Us magazines and I feel better since cancelling Anorexia Avenue” sentiments.
In contrast, not much of these:
• “Oh, look, hot sexy woman in attractive fashion, it’s so cool that we have that going for us, it makes me feel good as a female whenever I see one of us displaying how damn good we can look”
• “It is my understanding that these are hot, sexy women, so I’m studying this for both inspiration on clothes & accessories and to get a sense of pose, presentation, how to become sexier.” [In conjunction with the absence of such responses, I note several mentions of the Tips articles, most of which are highly derisive. Somewhere, there may be readers who are curious about, but have no sense of, how to “be sexy”, but they would not seem to exist in profusion].
• “Oh seriously, this is no different from looking at some guy’s Girlie Magazine” [accompanied by any of several possible responses / further thoughts stemming from that, ranging from “why is this women’s magazine showing me soft-core semi-porn shots of women” to "yeah, like I’d go out in public looking like an ad for “Debbie Does Downtown XXX”]
So, critique this summary, if you will: for you women readers/viewers, the fashion photography isn’t whopping you over the head with “this is sex / this is about sex” – You mostly see “recommended / featured clothing”, which can strike you as anything from ridiculous (expensive, ugly, silly-costumeish, and/or inappropriate for anyone not shaped like the skinny clothing models) to utilitarian (guide to changing trends in fashion, “hmm, I’d look good in that”, “hey, look at the cool way she’s using this in conjunction with that”).
Meanwhile, my follow-up question on your gut reaction to seeing a guy peering at the same pics yielded no consensus but a fair number of “yeah, I’d assume he’s leering at the scantily clad model”.
m’kay…
• Y’all don’t perceive the fashion-mag photos as overtly about sex because all photographs of models deliberately chosen to be attractive, dressed in attractive clothing that’s often (but not always) skimpy would be sexy to hetero guys, but it’s 'cuz of the way guys have their dicks wired to their eyeballs, not because of anything sexualized per se in the photos themselves? -or-
• You’re well aware of deliberate sexual posing of the models in the fashion-mag photos, and of how the garments are used to accentuate that, but that kind of thing is so pervasive in photos of women in ads and TV and whatnot that it’s just like background noise and you don’t notice it, what you react to is the clothing and styling? -or-
• You’re thinking something along the lines of “The part that’s ‘background noise’ isn’t so much the presentation of fashion as sex, but rather our desire as consumers to acquire clothing and etc. that best enables us to be hot and sexy in appearance, of course that’s always a factor in picking out apparel, even pocketbooks, scarves, headbands, it’s such a totally utilitarian function of clothing that we don’t remark on it any more than we’d say ‘Gee, they’re making it look like clothing can keep you warm’… of course we perceive the photos as about sex, but its because the photos are about clothes and clothes are about sex”
??