STITCH issue #04 PREVIEW

"dead leaves -- doe lump," photos by Marcy Capron



"Grey Guardians," photos by Marnie Soman

Issue #04, Winter 2009, goes live January 9 'o9. It's better than ever.

CHICAGO PRINTER'S BALL

STITCH is going to the ball!

The Printer's Ball, actually.

Hosted by excellent POETRY magazine of the Poetry Foundation, among other fine local publications, the Ball is a 21+ free party-party-time at the Museum of Contemporary Art. You wonder around looking at really great publications (like STITCH!), dancing, drinking, being merry.

Go! Enjoy.

Friday, Aug 22, 5:30pm-10pm, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave; FREE; printersball.org

In Vogue?

Fashion magazines are pretty much evil. Fabulously evil (or something).

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of editrix Anna Wintour's reign at fashion mag Vogue, and apparently she's done a whole great deal of good for the image of the publication, according to obsequious Robin Givhan, who penned in-case-you-weren't-aware-Vogue-is-really-great for the Washington Post.

Givhan spends the majority of the piece talking about how Vogue has become a cultural icon in its pure fantasy glamor and the fetishization of skinny bitches, celebrity obsession and luxury goods.

[Vogue] taps into that core desire to be gorgeous and declares it righteous and worthy and, most important, smart. [It] validates the modern careerist's fantasy, that she can run the world and look fabulous doing it.

Is that really all we ask from a fashion magazine? That it validate a consumerist cultural stereotype of the power female who not only wants to make a lot of money but spend it too? I mean, is this really celebrating, or even covering in a journalistic sense, the art of fashion? Sure it gives more attention to the few mega brands (CHANEL! PRADA!), maybe even fewer "up and coming" names who are already mostly well-known (Givhan reports that Vogue helped "two promising young designers" by paying for trainers and nutritionists so they could lose weight -- my money is on the Mulleavy sisters of Rodarte who DON'T NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT and have pretty much made it in the industry) but does that provide a cultural service? Or a consumerist one?

I don't know if we could really call Vogue, or Ms. Wintour for that matter, a cultural icon. I think it's more of a capitalist icon. Congrats to you Anna on 20 years of shelling out shit to the uber-rich! Here's to 20 more.

- C

Fashion Shoots - Cows & Otherwise

So, the magazine world is having a big party for cow-and-dairy trade magazine Dairy Today and their amazing new redesign. The firm that did the redesign, Pentagram, posted this video from their cover shoot, and it's pretty much exactly how STITCH shoots go:





Just kidding, folks. How could I be so rude? Our models are much, much, much better than cows. Although sometimes I have to admit I feel like the dude with the bucket. Only sometimes.

Speaking of video, you can look forward to behind the scenes video actually from STITCH shoots (no cows, yet) uploaded to our site in the coming weeks & months. Hooray!

- C