Photographer duo Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin shot eight covers, each featuring one model, for the 8th anniversary issue of Vogue China. Four of China’s most internationally successful models – Liu Wen, Sui He, Fei Fei Sun and Xiao Wen Ju – nabbed a cover, as well as Russian top model Daria Strokous, Dutch beauty Doutzen Kroes, German model Kati Nescher and comeback queen Sasha Pivovarova. With such a top notch cast posing for this September 2013 issue and given the special occasion, one would expect the covers would be a little more exciting than they actually turned out to be. The consensus on the tFS forums about the released covers was that the result was quite a letdown.
“I’m kind of underwhelmed with all 8 of the covers, to be honest. Doutzen’s looks the best from the thumbnails because it’s more filled out, fluid and the composition is good. Kati’s (who never takes a bad cover shot) looks to be second best and Daria’s comes in third. I love the styling of Daria’s but the lack of text ruins it for me. Sasha’s is completely dreadful, she looks unattractive and the cover shot is very unflattering,” wrote vogue28.
MON disagreed about the Sasha cover saying, “Sasha looks super gorgeous in all levels!!! I love her cover. The other covers look miserably forced. And the font used for 8 is completely unflattering.”
Miss Dalloway also didn’t like Sasha’s cover but loved Fei Fei Sun’s. “Fei Fei for me, all the way! Sasha looks incredibly dead here, I have not been liking her recent work. Doutzen also looks fantastic, the styling leaves a lot of room for desire, especially with that background, it just isn’t strong enough, so it’s down [to] the models to pull it off, and some really didn’t,” she posted.
And Kanna commented, “None of the covers particularly catch my eyes. They all look just okay but fall flat generally. Totally forgettable.”
Forgettable? Miserably forced? Underwhelming? Those are most likely not the reactions Vogue China anticipated when producing these eight covers. But when the expectations are so high, the team behind it is so renowned and the outcome looks like… this, can you really blame tFSers for not showing more enthusiasm for these covers?
