FQ Summer 11/12 Cover

FQ Summer 2011/12. Image - Steven Chee/Fashion Quarterly

2011 was the year that fashion magazines across the globe fell in love with the animal cover. Another, Numero and Cosmopolitan gave it go. Elle seemed obsessed with the concept, and tried it no less than six times. Closer to home, New Zealand's preeminent fashion-forward title Fashion Quarterly (FQ) jumped onto the bandwagon for its Summer 2011 issue.

A magazine cover should be striking, glamourous and immediately desirable, but the FQ Summer 2011 cover shot in Italy, photographed by Steven Chee, styled by Marina Didovich, featuring Mariana Braga at Premier, is anything but.

Part of the problem with this cover is the odd brown colour treatment applied to its image. I have no inherent issue with the colour brown, or beautifully tanned skin, but in this instance it alludes to a sense of dirtiness and poverty. It reeks of Tevye from Fiddler On The Roof - a poor, downtrodden commoner. International model Braga, who usually looks tanned and healthy, seems to be suffering from a terrible case of jaundice.

Adding to the questionable colour treatment, is the choice of cover co-star. Fashion magazines live in an idealised world full of rare, beautiful, or dangerous animals - horses, leopards, snakes. A donkey is a symbol of the working class, and tough manual labour completed in the scorching sun. A donkey is a dimwitted sidekick voiced by Eddie Murphy. A donkey is not a worthy fashion magazine cover star.

I certainly applaud the creative risk FQ took with this cover, and it's wonderful that they broke from their usual cover formula. However, an aspirational fashion magazine like FQ lives in a revered, utopian world. It is not a place for dirt. Or donkey.

FQ editor Fiona Hawtin does deserve some recognition this issue for doing away with the usual cover text, bar the issue title "White Heat". It presents a cleaner, more dramatic finish. It's a direction that most international fashion magazines have already headed in, and instantly elevates FQ from generic local title to international contender. It's just a shame that there isn't a stronger image underneath.

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Side note.

For more international coverage on the year of the animal cover, see here care of Fashionista.