If there’s one educated guess we can make about Deborah Needleman’s T, it’s that it will be very different from Sally Singer’s, if only because most of the editorial staff has been replaced since Needleman joined the magazine in September.
It happens every year: Our ever-growing pile of fashion magazines inches higher with each passing month, and by the time December rolls around, we can barely sift through the hundreds of stylish images we bookmarked for inspiration. 2011 was no exception, and in a year that celebrated retro supermodels, androgyny, vivid colors, and plenty of experimentation in the beauty department, choosing our favorites was particularly difficult.
The best editorials of the year ran the gamut from huge ensemble casts of blue-chip models styled by greats like Katie Grand and Carine Roitfeld, to intimate, one-on-one portraits of our favorite girls like Lindsey Wixson and Daria Werbowy. The acid brights that dominated the spring collections allowed for some pretty trippy trend stories last season, but the fall glossies featured much moodier imagery, with a number of gorgeous spreads in black and white.
Here are the editorials from 2011 that will stay tacked up on our walls and fill our inspiration boards well into the new year—and beyond.
Yesterday, Self Service, the hit French fashion magazine with an insider tilt, relaunched its website with full archives. The goal was to create a database of everyone that’s ever been in Self Service. It’s like an online encyclopedia filled with people who are really, really important in the fashion industry. (Seriously, there’s an index.)
Now you know I love a good online archive, so I spent yesterday afternoon scouring Self Service‘s to bring you the most iconic, weirdest, and captivating photos from the book’s 16 year history. While my computer’s hard drive is now 25% covered in images of Hannelore Knuts, I’ve managed to pull out 20 photos that are particularly noteworthy.
But don’t rely on me entirely. After checking out my edit, go to Self Service’s new site and find out for yourself.
