magazine collection: Vogue Italia

So after making a review on Vogue Nippon, I’m going to cover Vogue Italia. To many, Vogue Italia is THE fashion magazine. It pushes the boundary of fashion photography as well as challenges the public to very controversial and shocking images.  To be frank, if I had to decide which Vogue collection to save if say a fire were to run in my dormitory, I would save every single issue of my Vogue Italia.

Here are the basics:

Editor-in-Chief: Franca Sozzani

Firust issue: 1964

Every single cover and main editorial in Vogue Italia is shot by non other than Steven Meisel since the late 80’s. Here are my favorite covers from my collection, but as you can see from my second post in this blog, their October 2007 cover will forever be my favorite, too bad I can't find it :'(.

May 2007 with Gemma Ward

October 2008 with Anna Jagodzinska

December 2008 with Katrin Thronmann

June 2009 with Meghan Collison

Meisel's editorial tends to either push the boundaries of fashion and becomes instantly adored, or it can be a classic (often dull) studio shoots. Some issues he's touched on for editorials include celebrity rehab, oil spill in the Mexican Gulf, terrorism attack of 9/11 and the list goes on... 

He's known for having a circle of favorite models he feature in each cover, American Vogue even dubbed him the "godfather" of all famous models today which includes Giselle, Naomi, Linda and Christy. I'll do a post about his personal life soon! But for now, to see my Vogue Italia collection, continue after the JUMP!

This is my collection of Vogue Italia, my pride and joy! This magazine may be the very reason to my obsession with fashion.

A retrospective of the ones i own. 

Doutzen Kroes' 2005 cover was a fold out. This was back when she was still skinny, amazing.

Here are some of my favorite spreads from Vogue Italia (note I'm only posting the openings)

December 2007's "Vogue Patterns" with Kinga Rajzak. This spread was stunning in the incorporation of fabric as well as the color treatment. You have no idea how many times I've seen other magazines attempt to re-create this concept but fails miserably. 

November 2007's "Wild Warriors" with both Coco Rocha and Meghan Collison. This spread incorporated a lot of asian warrior references such as Attila the Hun, Mongolian armies and yak fur. What I loved most about this spread was how they've managed to transform both girls into that time period thus looking convincing. 

April 2007's "The Greatest Show on Earth" with Karen Elson has the redhead wondering around a circus. The whole spread has her interacting with a variety of circus characters and is a very fun spread as compared to the more dark toned ones Meisel has produced. 

December 2008's "The Dunes" with a variety of up-and-coming models at the time such as Anna Jagodzinska, Katrin Thronmann and Toni Garnn. The spread had the girls laying around in sand half naked. Though it may initially seem like a very boring spread, the monochromatic color scheme is absolutely stunning and the poses of the models were very unconventional. 

September 2009's "Performance" with Jamie Bouchert and Simon Nessman. The entire spread looked into the world of "theatricality" (learnt that from Glee) and has models style in a very old school costume manner. What I loved about this spread was how the personality of each model was able to pull through the images. 

December 2009's "Meiselpic" featured all of Meisel's favorite models, and is laid out in a twitter-like manner. It was a very fresh and unique spread because the photos taken of each model looked very amateur and candid which is why I adored this spread. Though many didn't like the gimmick concept, I appreciated a change in the tone of images. Much appreciated.