When I was growing up, I had a couple of very teenage uncles from London who had posters all over their rooms....not only of rock stars and British pop stars, the closet doors were covered with all these amazing hot hot hot Cosmopolitan covers featuring hot mostly-iconic models and imagery. I miss those old Cosmo covers, or the way magazines used to have gloriously glamorous covers that were all about style....not appeasing advertisers and selling MORE MORE MORE. I think they had so much style and sexiness to them. There are hardly any female-targeted publications with covers like these anymore. (Well, not mainstream publications like Cosmo.)
Scavullo shot most or all of these...I think you can easily see a style pattern, a vision from a visionary, when you scroll through them all. They're chic, sexy, subtle, intense. I think even at a tiny age, I knew these covers were sexy and strong.
Sometime in the 90s, everything changed. There was no more iconic
Helen Gurley Brown running the show (she wrote
Sex and the Single Girl, by the way and, for me, really spelled out what feminism was...again, for me....which meant you can really own your femininity and still be strong and independent). And there was no more Scavullo shooting the covers. And replacing gorgeous interesting models were/are the lackluster, boring, cereal-box celebrities. Ick. I'll take these old covers over any of the new ones ANYTIME and EVERY TIME. If you print these all out and pin them up side-by-side on a wall, you'll see how amazing the entire body of work is. I'll do a proper post on Scavullo and his women in the future. But I've been wanting to do this Cosmo vintage cover post for eons because these were some of my biggest fashion influences growing up. Just so so gorgeous.
PS I am writing this August 2012...I am going to definitely do a Gia post soon. Just look at her covers. I just think there was something really different going on then with the models. Her face especially says so much is going on in her head. I think this era of supermodels was really magical. I think it's so strange how they're all so 12-year-old looking now.♡
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| CHRISTIE BRINKLEY 1978 |
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| (I'M PRETTY SURE THIS IS) GIA 1980 |
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| ANOTHER GIA COVER...THE FAMOUS ONE FROM 1982 WHERE SHE'S HIDING HER TRACK MARKS (FROM DRUGS). |
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| ANOTHER CHRISTIE BRINKLEY COVER FROM 1983 |
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| GORGEOUS KIM ALEXIS 1987 |
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| THAT LOOKS LIKE RENEE RUSSO 1978 |
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| THE JANICE DICKENSON 1978 |
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| KELLY LEBROCK 1981 |
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| CAROL ALT 1980 |
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| STEPHANIE SEYMOUR 1994...STILL LOOKS HOT IN THE EARLY 90'S. |
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| CINDY CRAWFORD 1991 (VERY LIKE A VIRGIN OUTFIT) |
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| BROOKE SHIELDS 1981 GORGEOUS. |
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| PAULINA PORIZCOVA 1987 |
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| YASMIN LE BON (BEFORE SHE WAS MARRIED TO SIMON) 1990. LOVE HER. |
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| CHRISTY TURLINGTON 1987 (IN A VERY STEPHEN SPROUSE LOOKING DRESS) |
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| JILL GOODACRE (ONE OF MY FAVE MODELS WHEN I WAS A KID) 1986. I ACTUALLY REMEMBER THIS COVER. |
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I DON'T KNOW THE MODEL, BUT THE COVER IS SO PRETTY. AND SEXY. 1979
(SO A FEW COMMENTS ARE BELOW FROM SOME READERS AND THEY SAY THEY THINK THIS MODEL TO ALSO BE JANICE DICKENSON. I CANT REALLY TELL. IF IT IS HER, AND SEEMS THAT IT IS, THEN IT'S A GREAT COVER...I LOVE IT!) |
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| PAULINA PORIZKOVA FOLD-OUT COVER. CAN'T SEE THE DATE. SOMETIME IN THE 80'S. |
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| ANOTHER JILL GOODACRE COVER. 1988 |
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| ANOTHER STUNNING GIA COVER FROM 1979. AGAIN, INSIDE ARM TRACKS COVERED. |
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| ANOTHER PAULINA PORIZKOVA GORGEOUS COVER 1988 |
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| NAOMI SIMS...PROBABLY THE FIRST OFFICIAL BLACK SUPER MODEL 1975 |
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| AND EQUALLY GORGEOUS BEVERLY JOHNSON COVER 1976 (I THINK IT SAYS THAT) |
HERE IS A POST THAT FOLLOWED THIS ONE:
more cosmopolitan ♥ vintage cosmo covers 2
more friday fancy ♥ dolce & gabbana's la dolce vita
images from www.modelinia.com, www.jhu.edu, www.judgmentofparis.com ( a great site), thegossipwrapup.com, inoubliablemodelarmy.blogspot.com, http://ladichic.blogspot.com
The unknown model on 1979 Cosmopolitan cover pretty sure Janice Dickenson
ReplyDeleteyea, that's janice on the unknown cover. some other fun facts: the gold christie brinkley cover was actually shot by demarchelier in all the scavullo reign; cosmopolitan was the first magazine to outsource airbrushing on a regular basis for it's covers; models were usually featured 3 times on the covers; don't forget to credit sean m byrnes with the styling; kevyn aucoin did the make up for all the covers in the early 90's, with oribe doing the hair; brooke shields was 14 or 15 on her first cover featured here; rene, cindy, and paulina were all covergirls 10 plus times;only once was a contest done for a regular girl top be the cover girl named terry lynn in the early 80's; cindy was the only model in history to be featured back to back months;cosmo always did one swimsuit cover a year, anywhere from june to august;always had a cool personal interview with each covergirl each month giving you the real inside on fashion; covergirls were only paid $500 bucks each by helen gurley brown, even the supers; each cover girl was shot with two different looks for each month and about 6 months prior to publishing; marcus shekenberg was shot with cindy but deemed too hot for the cover; cosmo, historically, featured the most ethnic range of cover girls; christie brinkley was discovered by scavullo and her first job was a cover in 77; the kim alexis cover here was shot 2 or 3 months after she had a baby;in an interview scavullo denied the track marked gia rumors, stating he had the negatives to proove it;) happy hunting for every back issue you find, total classics:)))
ReplyDeleteyea, that's janice on the unknown cover. some other fun facts: the gold christie brinkley cover was actually shot by demarchelier in all the scavullo reign; cosmopolitan was the first magazine to outsource airbrushing on a regular basis for it's covers; models were usually featured 3 times on the covers; don't forget to credit sean m byrnes with the styling; kevyn aucoin did the make up for all the covers in the early 90's, with oribe doing the hair; brooke shields was 14 or 15 on her first cover featured here; rene, cindy, and paulina were all covergirls 10 plus times;only once was a contest done for a regular girl top be the cover girl named terry lynn in the early 80's; cindy was the only model in history to be featured back to back months;cosmo always did one swimsuit cover a year, anywhere from june to august;always had a cool personal interview with each covergirl each month giving you the real inside on fashion; covergirls were only paid $500 bucks each by helen gurley brown, even the supers; each cover girl was shot with two different looks for each month and about 6 months prior to publishing; marcus shekenberg was shot with cindy but deemed too hot for the cover; cosmo, historically, featured the most ethnic range of cover girls; christie brinkley was discovered by scavullo and her first job was a cover in 77; the kim alexis cover here was shot 2 or 3 months after she had a baby;in an interview scavullo denied the track marked gia rumors, stating he had the negatives to proove it;) happy hunting for every back issue you find, total classics:)))
ReplyDeletewow...is that really her? she looks great there. must be very early? it's a great sexy cover...
ReplyDeletethanks for the posts and the very long informative one. thank you. that was awesome to read! :) i love all those little details! aren't those old covers amazing? that was a HUGE part of why i wanted to be a magazine editor when i was little. amazing covers. before the celeb-gag covers.
thanks for reading! xxmt
LOOOOOOVE your post!
ReplyDeleteLove Cosmo covers.
thank you...there's a second one, too. you can search cosmo and you should be able to find it on my blog. thanks again for reading! xmt
ReplyDeleteCould not agree more. Scavullo's Cosmo Covers under HGB should all be put in a book or exhibition. The covers of todays newsstand are so dry, so not sexy. They don't sell sex and fantasy, they just promote the lives of boring celebrities.
ReplyDelete