Mags: UK Vogue – thinking beauty

Foul-mouthed celebrity chefs, misbehaving royalty, spoilt rock-star progeny, naughty supermodels, binge-drinking pop stars, drug-addicted musicians, crotch-flashing socialites with aristocratic lineage, former prime-ministerial wives penning tell-all memoirs, WAGS, Heather Mills, Jordan, David and Victoria Beckham... the United Kingdom sure knows how to breed tabloid fodder. These people generate enough stupefying regular content for the shamelessly immoral daily presses that they (almost) need not make anything up. An outsider would be forgiven for thinking the entire continent was devoid of good taste. I can't imagine the Queen sleeps well at night ('God save us, the nation is up the clackers!').

But inside the glossy pages of UK Vogue, away from the tabloid tackiness, exists another breed of Brit in which the Queen might find some solace, or a friend for tea – the highly aspirational and refined 'beautiful intellectual'. Granted, Jemima Khan, who represents the Beautiful Intellectual Society (BIS) this issue (other members include Rachel Weisz, Saffron Burrows, Sophie Dahl and Nigella Lawson) has attracted her fair share of newspaper column inches, thanks to her relationship with Hugh Grant/divorce from Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan/Goldsmith family status, but at least she dresses really well and her thick, streaked hair is always freshly blown dry.

This month Jemima (aged 34, UNICEF ambassador, Masters degree from the University of London) writes a column titled 'Spoilt for choice', through which we learn that even BIS members get the blues, affected, as she is, by her "chronic inability" to make decisions (alas, the human mind is a great societal leveller): "Every action is the subject of express volitional deliberation. From the mundane to the spiritual I'm equally stumped..." . Ever self-aware, Khan reasons that this is not just a "high-class problem" but an affliction, dubbed by psychologists as "choice overload", caused by a modern capitalist society with too many options.

Khan references studies conducted in the area of decision making before telling us she now finds herself limiting her options, so as not to complicate the situation/confuse her fragile brain: "I tend instinctively to choose restaurants with short menus where I know I can get a familiar fix. I opt for small shops... Gap is not for me. Nor is American Apparel."

Outside the fitting room, it's the big decisions, she says ("my direction, relationships, where to live and work") that leave her feeling flummoxed: "The more pressing and potentially life-changing the decision I need to make, the more confusing I find it". She often finds herself choosing not to choose to avoid actually making a decision, thereby keeping her options open (which, she later says, relates to loss/failure avoidance) and letting circumstances decide... only later regretting it. What is required, she muses, is confidence in one's ability to make a choice and stick to it: "Maybe it's the anticipation of regret which now means that I agonise over every decision, consult everyone and then in a state of confusion-spawned impotence end up deferring it."

Khan lists therapists, psychics and astrologers as people who've traditionally come to the aid of the indecisive, and says she's also waited for "a sign" to tell her what to do next: "Easier this, than to take responsibility for the decision myself... each of us alone is responsible for his or her individual situation in life. There is no ultimate rescuer."

Khan notes that the religious have a salve in the form of rule books and doctrine: "In deeply conservative Pakistan, where I lived for almost a decade, I noticed that people are spared many of those decisions because much of their behaviour is prescribed for them either by the Koran or by traditional society." [As a Christian, I can tell you that leading a life of faith is no easy paint-by-numbers street: daily I battle with 'what I would do' versus 'what would Jesus do' – to the point of virtual insanity – and rarely live up to expectations; thank God I can find solace in grace, which somewhat appeases the guilt.] Khan concludes that the major difference between the decisive and the inept is that those who make firm choices are not afraid to slip up: "People often say that knowledge is power. In fact I've come to believe that action is power." Similarly, I've always felt the Nike slogan – Just Do It – is possibly one of the best rules to live by, as well as the world's best marketing gimmick.

Other beautiful intellectuals taking up residence in this month's issue are New York-based Scandinavian high-brow novelist Siri Hustvedt (the wife of fellow literary luminary Paul Auster, she subscribes to both the Journal of Consciousness Studies and Vogue) and media darling Carla Bruni (intelligent by virtue of her career/grasp of multiple languages/recording an album of poems by Yeats, Auden and Christina Rossetti).


The wife of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Sarah Brown ("the perfect prime-ministerial spouse"), is treated to a respectful three-page feature, in which she is applauded for preparing her man for public approval ("Under Sarah's guidance, Brown's image has been transformed from a nail-chewing workaholic bachelor with, according to Tony Blair, 'psychological flaws', into a family man who inflates the paddling pool when he is supposed to be writing his speeches..."). Being Vogue, her wardrobe, as well as her behaviour and history, is also appraised: "she instinctively prefers sensible suits with matching scarves... her recent outfits would suggest she is developing a more sophisticated approach to dressing."

Other features include the Vogue Spy story 'Marriage guidance', which advises women who plan on marrying in the registry office what to wear (going low-key is all the rage and requires a specific type of dress – think "flirty Collette Dinnigan sheaths and bubble-hemmed babydolls by Elizabeth Fillmore"); eight pages devoted to profiling photographer Tim Walker and his whimsical, if a bit mad, visual creations (a great insight into the mind of a true, modern-day eccentric creative); 'Measure for Measure' by well-connected Vogue contributors Fiona Golfar and Tamasin Day-Lewis, who keep drinking diaries for the magazine in order to highlight the lifestyle, social and health differences between those who drink and those who do not; and the beauty feature, 'The Bronze Age' by a former sun-worshipper who now swears by St Tropez (who, thankfully, are an advertiser – see pages 212/213).


Aggy Deyn fans will be disappointed to see every major model (Catherine McNeil, Amber Valetta, Angela Linvall, Sasha Pivovarova, Elise Crombez, Jessica Stam) but Vogue's cover girl posing for the main fashion shoots (she does, however, feature prominently in the double-page Burberry ad) – this is sort of like buying a mag based on the celebrity on the cover only to find a hack job of a cover story inside pieced together from various other interviews you've already read, or, even more annoyingly, finding a single page devoted to deconstructing the celebrity's style with no other insight into why the magazine has chosen them to represent reader aspirations/interests.


The front-of-book fashion pages address the 'haute boheme' trend and summer's sartorial essentials: swimsuits, sunglasses, holiday wears (denim shorts, shirt dresses, vinyl bags, bikinis, sandals) and watches – um, watches (cue friendly throwback to advertisers)? The beauty section is colour-coded (red hot, green goddess, orange maid, deep blue), profiles some of the world's renowned beauty therapists, and also covers bronzers and scents (predictable – the summer beauty editorial agenda is the same every year), and health turns its attention to hiking.
As I have a major girl crush on Jemima Khan, my feelings towards this issue of UK Vogue are unfairly biased. It's not an amazing issue, but I shall be filing it away on account of her contribution.

Overall excitement factor: 7
Feel-good factor: 5/6
Eye-candy rating: 4/5

The Stats
Issue: June 2008
Book size: 254 pages
Inside front cover: BMW
Back cover: Givenchy
FOB ads: Dior, Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Rolex, Gucci, Miu Miu eyewear, Burberry...
Editor: Alexandra Shulman
Publisher: Conde Nast
Website: www.vogue.co.uk

Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel