Undercovers

That's no secret, no mystery: we're not really obsessed with covers in general. We're more the kind that is eagerly looking forward to seeing what's insde the belly of the beast. Covers suffer, way too often, from an overload of unnecessary letters. Covers suffer from the fact they are covers, actually, meaning they had to be appealing to the masses or at least to the magazine's core afficionados, who love ''their'' book to look like the way they love how it looked like last month, last season, last year etc. Really? Seems to be slightly more complicated. Magazine-addicts are such complex beings, sometimes stubborn people that get no satisfaction, sometimes nostalgic daydreamers complaining when they have to wake up, and sometimes they can be nicely surprising as well. We might be no exceptions in what could be called an ocean of exceptions: we happen to complain, we think of the long-gone golden days of some former favorite mags of ours, we rejoice when we read some names before seeing the cover and contents, we also have weird crushes. One of the latter could be japanese i-D's premiere. Though it's seemingly not a real debut issue as we heard this magazine existed in the early nineties then quickly disappeared, less than two years after it's launch. But let's feed our eyes and not the debate. (Kiko Mizuhara by Nobuyoshi Araki).

Whether she is relevant or random as a covergirl is a pointless topic – she gives us goosebumps and sends our eyes to could nine everytime she appears in or on a magazine, she'd look just as fantastic if she were on first page of a free daily newspaper. Iselin Steiro is synonymous with incredible instants, magical moments and memories of her from Vogue Italia, a decade ago already, remain unforgettable, and so does her story from Vogue Paris something like eight months later. Vogue Paris again this time, literally the face of their summer (and most likely of ours as well). First time we're pleased by one of the french edition's covers this year. That's relieving, that leaves some hopes for a brighter future (higher expectations would be a tad too much, though). But let's not be mistaken: Vogue Paris isn't going to go back to what it used to be during Roitfeld's reign, that era's over. The real matter is if the mag is currently finding his new direction, at last. (By Mikael Jansson).

Word is that Meisel has lost his magic (or his mojo, inspiration, his Meisel-ish vibe – call it how you like best). The question isn't if this is true or not but where do these whispers come from, and the answer is as simple as ABC: from some people living with a certain idea of what Meisel's work for Vogue Italia has to be, like forever. But then, you'll probably also hear Testino is boring, Walker and Roversi are repetitive, Richardson is sleazy and Lindbergh gets lazy. Too many people putting too much energy into complaining and stuttering, right? Then arrived Vogue Ukraine as a sort of outsider next to its european, asian, overseas and downunder older sisters that are either damaged by their very own routine or struggling to break this very same routine. Vogue Ukraine's team seems to know what they want, where they wanna go, and how to walk that way. There is a real will but they do not have aesthetics of their own yet. Or it seems so, it screams so, it screams old-school Vogue Italia. Sometimes to the point of parody, sadly enough because they could use their special status to bring something genuinely new to the (coffee) table. This being said, and while there is still much room for improvement, the latest issue's cover and main editorial are better than most of their work before. Good sign from this front too. (Emily DiDonato by Bon Duke).