Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue: four fashion questions

1. Is honesty the new Photoshop?

Two months ago, Leibovitz gave the Pirelli calendar a reality check, swapping its usual taut, dewy-skinned aesthetic for an earthier vision of womanhood with wrinkles and soft rolls of fat on show. Now, the photographer brings realness to the Hollywood issue. The cover argues that age is no barrier to sequin-clad glamour, while the portfolio inside is “raw, intimate, and honest”, according to Vanity Fair, and “dismissive of the shackles of airbrushing and Picasso’d Photoshop manipulations”. In practice, this means artfully messed-up hair, visible crow’s feet and irregularities in skintone against a backdrop of frayed-edged, sludge-coloured fabric that looks like an American-civil-war-era carte de visite. Importantly, though, everyone still looks hot. Continue Reading...