The September "Issue"

Ever since my sophmore year of high school, fall has been my favorite season. My love of the crunching leaves and increasingly cool temperatures was two-fold--since i'm an unapologetic nerd, I loved all of the "back-to-school" hubub. When I wasn't shopping for pencil cases though, I was scanning the magazine racks nearly every day in August so I could snatch up all the fall fashion issue of Vogue.

When people say something like "Vogue is my bible," they're talking about the famed September issue--it's the only one of the year that carries the same physical weight as the Bible. It can almost always be counted on to clock in at over 700 pages, and even if half of that is advertisements, that's still pretty hefty for a magazine. Why all that weight? As is the case with the academic year, the fashion year starts in September. That's right. January. No one really likes you.

Last year, though, thanks to the pesky recession reeling its head, editor-in-chief Anna Wintour had to get "creative." I say "creative" because except for the few Depression-era photo spreads the magazine has featured and the occasional $220 watch in place of the $2,200 watch, Vogue has not done much to bring itself down from its gold and diamond-encrusted pedastal. When a magazine works as hard to set itself apart from other magazines in terms of class, a little thing like a recession isn't going to be something they become concerned with.

However, the fall 2008 issue of the magazine did have some pithy "money-saving" ideas--this may have been where the insufferable "shop your closet!" idea came about--and the page length had drastically been reduced. The fall 2007 issue was 840 pages, and the fall 2008 was a measly 798. That may not seem like much of a difference, but it followed a trend that most fashion designers had resigned themselves to--minimalism was in, and it stemmed from a necessity, not from a desire. If there's anything that designers seem to hate, it's being forced to change their vision for a collection, rather than wanting to change.

So, what can we expect from Vogue this fall? If the fall collections are any indication, it's this: designers have been polite to the economic crisis for an entire year. So...it's time to party! Sequins! Huge shoulders! Alligator shoes! F**k you, recession--the worst is over, right? RIGHT. If we just cover our ears with our $1,000 clutches, we won't hear that we're still not entirely out of the woods yet. And maybe, just maybe, the return of fashion and the eschewing of frugality will be just what this recession needs.

Maybe.