CR by Carine

During her ten year reign at Vogue Paris, Carine Roitfeld signed each editors letter with a hand-written scrawl of her initials. This month, the scrawl resurfaced. Like red lipstick dragged across a mirror, Carine's large initials dressed a mock-up front cover of her latest endeavour; CR Fashion Book.

"The name's not a big surprise, but oh well." she said

Like the hand-written initials, the all-encompassing ethos of CR Fashion Book will be an intimate one that's 'more mental than physical'. The new publication will forgo the front-of-book style sections that epitomise Vogue, in favour of developed editorial spreads and lengthy analytical features which equally balance newcomers and industry mainstays.

Of the magazines 288 pages over 100 will be ads, suggesting that Carine has abandoned her anti-advertsing ideology. But there's no despair on my part, I'm willing flick through and dig for the gold. CR Fashion Book embodies my favourite magazine characteristics and the front-of-book bits will still be available in its online content.

Each issue of the biannual magazine will have an interwoven theme and when the first edition is launched in September, the motif will be obsession. It's a fitting discourse; obsession is not only fashion's subtext but defines Carine's extensive and influential career - from model, to stylist, to journalist, to editor and back. At 57 and about be a granny, she has the determined work-ethic of a bright eyed 21 year old, with no signs of slowing down.

CR Fashion Book will be published by media group LLC and debut in September for £6. And even if it's a bitter disappointment, the first issue promises an unseen Bruce Weber portrait of Patti Smith in a gown (preview below). Along with sideboob on the cover, that's enough to fuel my curiosity. I'll tuck my six quid away and wait patiently for September.


"You can't put yourself into competition with a magazine like Vogue; you have to create something new, something different."