What - August cover of the SOUTH AFRICAN edition of Marie Claire. French or American or any other edition has nothing to do with it.
Who - Duchess of Cambridge (better known as Kate Middleton) is involved only to the point the image of her head and hands were pasted onto the photo of the body of an anonymous model, dressed in a typical modern African style. We totally agree with what the editors print at the bottom of the cover, that Kate should wear the outfit. Indeed, the look is very far from the pale, classic, romantic, royal, or whatever blend of all these she has been parading.
Attitudes - I take it as a way the magazine found to compliment her for her zestful aura, yet persistently discreet posture amidst sameness rigour, in addition to the now proven fact she can act as a universal model - and that implies not only for fashion, but also for attitude. What a compliment in fact! Universal elegance and attitude are so scarce attributes. To regret are those comments on Yahoo site just posted, which lean toward revolt and demands of suing. The Buckingham Palace is very likely to make it a single-day stir. Regardless, while the magazine will have learned more about their readers, who stand as actually very different from the profile the publication promotes, we will be left to wish readers would be able to look into themselves instead of just blowing the usual attacks.
Most comments do not address the fashion design at all; rather they reveal rage over being, or the possibility of being, deceived. Such strong worries, we must notice, come in parallel with the widespread practice of 'facebooking' oneself - which not rarely involves fake -, as well as creating facebook profiles of others (thus fake again), be them celebrities or not.
'Is it no longer a man's world?', the cover also shows around the middle. The attitudes in reaction to the cover indicate the world has not changed much, even though we can no longer call it that of men.
Similar reaction was manisfested by a Brazilian columnist, Barbara Gancia, in her article "Woody Allen me pegou na curva" (Woody Allen took me by surprise), published recently in Epoca magazine and in newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. She learned through Newsweek (16.7) that Woody Allen's profile was totally different from the roles he plays in his movies. And the ingenious Allen has never made that a secret. Ms. Gancia, however, got so distraught on realizing reality was different from her ideas that she misreads the English written article to declare that his author (a renown editor) rundowns Allen - while the editor actually compliments him - and ends her article calling Woody Allen a 'damned impostor' (farsante maldito). (yeah!) Read more soon.
