Laraphile

The other day, I received a most wonderful care package from Paris, composed of two very different types of French literature I could use to practice my French with. The first one I am going to share with you is an edition of VOGUE Paris, which, as a certified Francophile and lover of Paris in particular, delighted me. When I last bought VOGUE Paris over two years ago I could not understand a word of it. I am very happy to report that this time round, I was much more able to comprehend the text, although still much of my non-French focus was, of course, on the pretty pictures.

I am not a frequent magazine reader, however one unusual thing struck me about this magazine - please do let me know if this is actually more commonplace than I thought. The cover model, Lara Stone, was not simply a cover model. In fact, I would estimate that photographs or interviews with her took up at least 50% of the magazine's pages, with most of the rest of the pages taken up by ads. Even the cover of the runway supplement could not escape her, with not one but three images of Ms Stone.

I'd always had an image in my head of the Parisienne as a perfectly unruffled, eternally chic bad girl who was less likely to be found with a girl crush on a model than wearing a pair of Crocs. It appears not. Here is a tiny percentage of the photos I took of editorial upon editorial of Lara Stone:

There were tons of beautiful sequences each one titled 'Lara something or other' with several different photos for each. This was my favourite!

Of course, Lara fronted and presented the regular (I presume they're regular) sections on beauty and make-up. It was really fun experimenting on the angle of these shots, I could either make her jaw look really huge, or her eyes really alien-esque. Mwahaha, power!!!!

There were also, scattered through the magazine, different artists' takes on the model.

Naturally, although I may have thought that they went a little overboard on this particular model, nothing annoys me more than when a magazine uses a photo of a celebrity such as Angelina Jolie, who is known to sell well, and then put a one page interview inside. As I mentioned, I only buy magazines very, very rarely because they seem to finish so quickly, but this one seems to be neverending. With the hundreds of gorgeous photos, I can spend hours gazing at them, and then several more trying to decipher the text. I suppose the French know how to do something properly!

Part II of my Paris care package to follow...