Right, so before she retires, Anna Wintour needs to do a vogue photoshoot with my friend and me.
I nearly burnt down my house earlier in the day in an attempt to make peach lemonade, whilst watching episodes of M.A.S.H., which might be why the boiling of the peaches went so awry. I therefore decided to reward myself for my day of inadequacy with a bit of modeling with a friend. As an exercise in vanity, my best friend Mary Catherine and I decided to have our own Vogue cover shoot. Set to a flawless playlist, made by yours truly, we emulated a few of our favorite looks and incorporated some of our favorite themes.
In a few of them, I came out looking like a European woman from one of the Bond films my mom couldn’t stop watching when I was a little kid, incredibly tanned from vacation, wearing a minimal amount of makeup, and having extremely long hair. In a few other ones I came out looking tired and depressed with a look of disgust on my face, but those photos were promptly deleted, as I’m sure you can understand. Depending on the angle we either looked like Aphrodite, the goddess of femininity, sexuality, and love, or we looked like Medusa with mint-green skin and snake hair in tow.
Our first theme was fire and ice. I was fire and Mary Catherine was ice. While I was wearing a dress that’s too big for me, that I intentionally wore backwards, Mary Catherine wore my mother’s t-shirt, the only remotely light blue shirt I had in my house.
Then I had a bit of flower power, wearing my mod sixties costume dress from my middle school production of “Hairspray,” with sunflowers that Mary Catherine painted on my face. Using some white acrylic paint mixed with my magenta nail polish, I gave Mary Catherine hot pink streaks across her clavicle, proving once and for all that if you don’t think we’re industrious, then you’re wrong.
We also didn’t have any makeup (because why would that possibly be important for modelling) so we made do with the highlight and lipstick that we had. There were a few miscellaneous photos that we took as well, just to finish off our photo sesh.
While we were doing this, Mary Catherine and I commented on how we hadn’t grown out of our childhood fantasies in which we ran across my house, pulling every dress I owned out of my costume box and making it look like a tornado hit. Occasionally, I wondered why we were still doing this, and why our obsession with wearing bizarre clothes and taking photos of ourselves endured over the years. I stumbled upon the only answer that is justification for anything: self-love. I do not believe that there is anything wrong with telling yourself that you look good everyday, whenever you do. You’re supposed to show yourself a little love. And whenever you see a young woman getting pictures taken of herself out in public, it can be powerful because she is presumably showing herself the appropriate amount of self-love.
The Tragic Queen,
Raquel
The Tragic Queen 