Personal study project word finished

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Thomas Moore
Media Level 3 Year 2
Start 05 November 2021
Vogue
And how they use the male gaze?
The company that I will be doing for my personal project I will be searching famous magazine
company Vogue for the male gaze, and I will be going into detail with how they use the male gaze to
attract the audience that they want. I will be doing this by using articles and the research that I have
gathered over my stages of preparing for this essay. I will be covering vogue as a whole and use some
of their front covers and magazine content to back up my points and as proof.
The theory that I will be using for this is the male gaze which is the theory that I thought would
fit the best with vogue and what I think will give me the most to talk about. The male gaze theory is
when companies use women to appeal to the male audience to increase buys or views this theory is
also used in movies and in tv in general it is most commonly used in magazines, but you can find
examples of the male gaze in most parts of media. But the piece of media I will be focusing on for my
essay is Vogue and their magazines.
Vogue as a company has been very famous in the fashion and the media industry for a long time
and are most well-known for their magazine work and mostly their front covers will mostly involving
models and very attractive women and occasionally having a male. Vogue is critically regarded as one
of the most famous fashion and modelling outlets with being up there with Playboy and Victoria
secret and with most famous people and models aiming to land a front cover for vogue. In the past
vogue has made famous pieces for example the shoot with billie Eilish which blew up on social media
with its out raw about body positivity and another front cover staring singer harry styles confidently
wearing a dress. Vogue also has a news page where they discuss fashion news and all that’s going on
in Hollywood. Vogue has been viewed in the media as a fashion company that have very modern
views and don’t take it easy on a celebrity star when they are under fire. When it comes to critising
their work none has really done it other than the clear use of the male gaze in their magazines and on
the front cover of their magazines. For example, the newsletter Haste quoted this about the billie
collab with vogue “Sadly, not everyone is supportive of Eilish and her new look. The day after British
Vogue hit the stands the tabloids counteracting with headlines titled, “Proof that money can make you
change your values and ‘sell out’: Billie Eilish shocks fans by swapping baggy clothes for lingerie”.

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The technical construction of the vogue magazine front covers is very simple but are always affective
and has a very popular pose with it causing the internet to create a vogue challenge where the person
tries to create their own Vogue cover using their face and the common pose that Vogue models do.
The technique used on Vogue covers are usually the model or celebrity posing while looking either
directly at the camera or just past the camera but in the general direction of the person viewing the
magazine which i believe is a technique to draw in buys for the magazine. The editing on the photos is
usually very light with the images looking very raw and fresh but have blurred backgrounds the
models are also wearing clothes that high in fashion at the time and at some points Vogue has even
started fashion trends all these add together very well with the added Vogue writing at the top of the
page and usually have very little on the side of advertisements on the front cover. The word vogue at
the top of the front covers “The Vogue logotype is not technically a font. It started out as Didot, then
the logo designer made adjustments, most notably changing the height of the crossbar in the letter G
and changing the inner shape in the letter O” Inside the magazines there are very tidy and modern
looking with a lot of text and articles, but it doesn’t look cluttered and busy it looks almost inviting.
The contense of the inside of the magazines are usually news articles about models or celebrities just
like the news page that vogue have online but it’s something someone can enjoy in their hands at
home. The colours that are used throughout the magazines are very contrasting with each other with a
lot of the tones black and white used but pastel colours are also used in the construction of the
magazines.
As talked about I am showing how vogue uses the male gaze to attract an audience and to see this all
you would have to do is search Vogue and see the huge number of female models that are used on the
front covers of vogue and with the most of them wearing clothes that show off a decent amount of
skin for example the Vogue cover they did with Zendaya she is wearing a very low cut dress and
vogue have no problem with hiding it also with the cover with Lorde she has been put in an outfit
where a small amount of her body is covered in flowers and with her placed Infront of the vogue
writing she is showing off a lot and there are many more examples of this been used on the front
covers of vogue. This is used to attract in a male audience and to sell more copies of their magazines
and there has been theories that vogue does these covers to create a sture in the media that their name
is pushed out there more and results in bad PR turning into more sales for vogue. Vogue have been
using the male gaze for a long time and will probably continue using it because it works for them a lot
of people do not agree with the male and believe that women should not be sexualized in the media
but social media and magazines are not the only place that the male gaze is used it is also heavily used
in movie and tv and vogue use that by bringing popular actors at the time onto there magazines and
slapping them onto their front cover. Another example of vogue using the male gaze is when they had
pop star Rihanna on a fair few of their front covers and the Independent magazine said this “With a
cover line reading “Rihanna by Rihanna”, she wore a sheer Valentino dress and thigh-high lace-up

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heels on the front of the publication. It was one of multiple looks she created for the magazine” The
front cover caused abit of a stir with one side of people loving it and the other side of people saying
that vogue need to stop sexualizing women. People think that vogue are empowering women to be
themselves and I believe that Vogue believe they are doing that as well and other people believe that
vogue is using women to sell more copies which side you are on is depending on how you view the
magazines and is up to you to decide.
The reason that I have chosen Vogue as my essay choice is because I am doing a fashion
website/online magazine as my final major project and by researching about about the male gaze in
Vogue and even though they are using the male gaze they have been making famous fashion
magazines for years and have always been at the top of their game when it comes to what they do and
I think with me doing this it has given me a pretty big in Site into what makes a good fashion product
online and offline. The techniques that they use in their work as well and the techniques that I have
talked about will come in a lot of help for when I am creating my own piece. The way they style their
magazines inside and out with the modern but sleek look and making sure it doesn’t look messy or
cluttered is something that I want to aim for when creating my piece.
To conclude my essay and to look over all the research that I have done I believe that yes vogue does
use the male gaze and that they use it a lot in their pieces but whether they use it to sell more copies or
to empower women is up to the viewer to decide and I think they are lots of people out there that are
for both sides of that argument. I have learned a lot from what I have researched and had abit of a dive
into the fashion world and what I have learned I will include into my FMP.
Bibliography—
Ellie Abraham. (2021). RIHANNA SHOT AND STYLED HERSELF FOR THE COVER OF
VOGUE ITALIA. Available: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/rihanna-styled-cover-
italian-vogue-b1859636.html. Last accessed 21st December 2021.
REBECCA DAVISON. (2021). Proof that money can make you change your values and sell out':
Fans shocked as Billie Eilish swaps baggy clothes for lingerie in Vogue. Available:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9537505/Billie-Eilishs-lingerie-Vogue-shoot-praised-
celebs-ditching-signature-grunge-look.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490. Last
accessed 20th December 2021.
Franklin Veaux ,. (2021). What font is the Vogue magazine cover? Available:
https://www.quora.com/What-font-is-the-Vogue-magazine-cover. Last accessed 20th December 2021.

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