I was relaxing Sunday morning with my coffee and the Sunday NYT, and an article popped out at me in the Style section. The photo of a woman with wild curly red hair caught my attention and I learned there is a new fashion magazine aimed at “smarter, intellectual people who aren’t slaves to fashion, but creators of it.”
The first issue of Bare, which went on sale earlier this month, includes essays, fiction and interviews, and included a story about bad hair days. The pages are printed on heavy uncoated stock, and the photos aren’t retouched.
"Bare is a global fashion, culture and arts magazine dedicated to the unadorned moment of truth, an ode to the raw beauty of realism and simplicity. Here you will find imagery, artistry, and storytelling with no creative brief, no client, no shimmer, no patina, no retouch -- no rules,” says the magazine’s mission statement.
While I love the idea of a publication that is willing to depart from the typical beauty magazine – with its glossy images of too-perfect-to-be-real models – I don’t think this is that magazine. When I looked at the photos in the first issue of Bare, it didn’t look very “bare” to me. The models may appear barefaced, but they were still beautiful models. And I suspected they were still carefully made up to have that no-makeup look
In other words, the magazine seems be trying hard to look like it’s not trying hard.
