Monday, May 16, 2011

Vogue Overstyling?

Vogue

Vogue

Lately I've been finding the garments in Vogue Knitting to be over styled. The white dress above is a perfect example. I had to read the caption details to figure out what I was seeing.The knitting is often obscured by layers of clothing, heavy jewellery or other overwhelming accessories. If you go to the website they do show other views as well as unadorned shots so that you can see the garment. However, when I pay for a magazine I don't expect to have to go elsewhere to figure out what I'm seeing.


Knitter's

I looked at Knitter's for comparison and they choose to style in an absolutely minimal way. Many of the shots are of models with no jewellery and if they do have any it is often just a pair of earrings. I don't think I know any women who wear no jewellery at all. Wedding rings and watches at a minimum seem to be the norm.



Interweave Knits
Interweave Knits

Interweave Knits seems to be styled closest to the way I see real women dressing, except for one styling choice they make and that is the odd (to me a least) layering choices. What do you think? Do you have a styling preference. Do you think it makes a difference to which patterns you choose to knit?

2 comments:

  1. When I see a pattern in a book or magazine, I want to see the knitting. I think Knitters (of the US ones) is the best at showing the design from multiple angles with minimal extraneous stuff. Vogue has always been about stylized, dramatic ... rarely have I seen Vogue designs that look wearable ... arty, yes, wearable, no! IWKnits often does have odd layering and color combos ... and often you just can't see the knitted details. Just my humble (ok, not so humble) opinion!

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  2. I totally agree with you re overstyling. I think knitting photos/styling is often confused with general fashion photography/styling. Knitting designs do need to be seen as knitters want to see details before the decide to spend a lot of money on yarn and hours, weeks or even months knitting something. With buying general fashions, if you can't see it properly you can always look at it in the shops or buy it online and send it back if you don't like it. That's not possible when you've spent months knitting a garment.

    As a designer it can be difficult when you send off a garment and have no control of how it's styled or what clothes they put with it. Most of the time I've been happy but there have been occasions when i've been quite upset about how they've styled my designs.

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