Back in 2006, when I was a freshman at FIT, I was a library clerk in the periodicals department of the library. My love of fashion magazines and catalogs is something that has always been with me, but when I was working at the library, that love grew 10 fold. I mean, come on! I was surrounded by books, magazines, catalogs and archived images from the beginning of fashion magazine time to present date. I was living the dream. I went home everyday from the library, arms piled high with magazines that we had duplicates of and tear outs from magazines that we didn’t need. I would gladly spend the entirety of my work shift organizing the stacks of look books and bound collections of back issues of Glamour and and Harper’s Bazaar. Sometimes when I look back at the sheer joy I had working in the periodicals department, I wonder why I didn’t see the connection. Makea+ magazines+ fashion= happiness!
Sigh, one can’t lament the past forever. I will make the best of my current situation and write off the past few years as a supreme learning and growth period. Something that I am doing now, with my laser focus on editorial photo spreads, is taking the time to study the magazine images that I find striking. While leisurely leafing through the September issue of W magazine, I was just blown away by this editorial photo spread:
I am not often moved by photo spreads. I may love the aesthetic of the images and the styling of the clothing, but not necessarily have a gut reaction to the pictures. I don’t know why I felt so strongly while looking at these images, but I did. And it reminded me of another W photo spread that I can only describe as breathtaking. In the July 2005 issue of W magazine, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie did the photo shoot to end all photo shoots: Domestic Bliss. I used to have a physical copy of this issue and I reluctantly recycled it. BUT!!!! I have the digital copies of the pictures and they will stay with me forever.
Mildred Lee Productions 
One thought on “W Is For Winning”