Compared to Vogue, Elle is like the younger, hipper, less judgmental sibling — more willing to open itself up to new, not-so-polished talent, to forgive less-than-stellar ensembles and open its doors to celebs who aren’t Anne Hathaway or Charlize Theron or whoever else is part of Vogue’s loop of redundant cover faces.
Unlike Vogue, Elle doesn’t limit itself to princessy gowns. Its pages aren’t filled with lofty manors, palatial villas or posh penthouses. Some of the models and celebs who fill the pages prefer to lounge in beatnik apartments, laid-back pubs or, in the case of Diane von Furstenburg, the odd office headquarters here or there.
Which explains why the magazine’s tome The Ellements of Personal Style, feels more, well, real — and current. The women of Elle aren’t cookie-cutter socialites who wouldn’t know a discount coupon if it bit them in their Pilates-toned butts. Like a scrapbook filled with old snapshots from their childhood, red carpet looks and beautifully-shot images of the celebrity mingling at home, the pages of Elle’s book offer a less artful, but still well-curated peek into the star’s homes.
Here, Erin Wasson presents the back wall of her bedroom, a brick panel laden with bags hanging on hooks haphazardly arranged. We discover that the sectional couch was pilfered — oh wait, “adopted” — from an Elle shoot only last year and that Wasson has a penchant for oversized cartoon heads, scavenged from a friend’s apartment just before they were headed for the garbage shoot.
There are interesting, little-known facts about the women who agree to open up their homes to us. Padma Lakshmi and her ex-husband Salman Rushdie may no longer be together but that didn’t stop her from hanging the Francisco Clemente portrait gifted by Rushdie above the bed in her East Village apartment. Diane von Furstenburg prefers to hang her Clemente portrait where it can be admired by everyone — in the lobby of her building in New York’s Meatpacking District.
The book also serves as an introduction to industry insiders with scene-stealing wardrobes and even more interesting lives. Art scenester Yvonne Force Villareal, co-founder of Art Production Fund (the outfit that helped Vanessa Beechcroft finesse her much-buzzed-about performance piece “Show,” which featured 20 females garbed in Tom Ford for Gucci bikinis with five stark naked at the Guggenheim), is the sort the wears catsuits practically every day.
“It’s black and tight, like a body stocking, so you feel smooth and comfortable,” Villareal explains. Her home, stocked with John Currin, Rachel Feinstein and Martin Eder works, is a showpiece, but a playful one. Not stuffy or too curated that it can’t be enjoyed. Which is representative of the spirit of Elle.
In the foreword, the magazine’s editor in chief Roberta Myers celebrates the spirit of the publication: how its original incarnation as a French magazine offered women a voice. Elle founder Helene Lazareff advocated pants for her readers during the winter months when sporting trousers was considered illegal. She gave Simon de Beavoir and Colette space to write about the modern woman’s travails.
It may not have the same ball-breaking forward stride it started out with but what Elle has never lacked is a youthful zeitgeist, a willingness to discover people and things that are new, whether or not they fall within what’s considered fashionable.
In this book they are able to share, within its 255 pages, a somewhat more youthful portrait of the movers and shakers in Hollywood and beyond. And it’s this rare unstudied glimpse of their inner lives (and closets, natch) that makes it worth the read.