Fickle, but fashionable

The answer to the question, "Do women have any idea what they really want?" has got to be: No, not really – no way. Women's magazines, of course, are out there every month trying to convince the female of the species that one thing is as sure as death and taxes. Something, anything new will fill the bill because new will sell. New will get women to go out and buy. And buy. And buy. Temptation. Frustration. Temptation. The eternal cycle – never ending, ever ongoing.

A few hours ago Federal Express dropped a couple of packets on my desk, clearly containing magazines. One I could barely lift. Strictly a two-hand operation. Vogue it was, in all its September glory. Its biggest, heaviest issue ever. 722 pages. The figure is carried in outsize lettering on the cover. There it is: "722 pages of Fabulous Fall Fashion." Well, yes, I mean the issue literally is composed of 722 pages but most of those pages are advertising. A lot of fancy, elegantly posed photographs to be sure, but if you're thinking of articles, special features or such, you're getting something in the neighborhood of maybe less than 200 pages.

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So what are women – who are going to be toting that glossy brute along with them to read on the beach – going to find to enlighten them apart from all those interminable ads, which pay for its publication and keep Mr. S.I. Newhouse and his cohorts happy?

A tug of the forelock as a token of esteem to all those women over 30 – bulk of the readership – by putting Linda Evangelista, a very hot model in her time ($10,000 for a day's work) three years back before going into retreat at St. Tropez. St. Tropez in the winter? Don't ask. Still, the lady's pretty fetching at the ripe old age of 36 – definitely a seriously senior age in the model business when the pretty things tend to wither and blow away like autumn leaves. Vogue spreads her over 28 pages worth in garments in the $2,000 range – a range that the average Vogue reader can handily afford, according to statistics.

What else are women getting for their $3.95 this month? A profile on Katie Couric looking to the future, along with Vera Wang – the big lady for the most fashionable wedding gowns – and a spread shot by Vogue's favorite hottie photographer Annie Leibovitz (you can envision Vanity Fair and Vogue going to the mat in hopes of getting Ms. Leibovitz's exclusive services) of a portfolio of "renegade" designers.

And then, there is a chilling photograph if ever there were one. Longtime English designer Vivienne Woodward draped over an Empire chaise lounge, with a large shawl artfully draped over most of her vital areas. I don't want to be mean, but let's just say it was very brave or bold of Ms. Woodward to accept to pose. Her husband, kind of Heathcliff broodingly dark, is sitting sulkily at the far end of the chaise.

And winding up the catchy bunch of coverlines in pretty, big-type face – real Cosmopolitan style – "The Sex Memoir Paris Can't Put Down." Actually this naughty French novel, which from Francine du Plessix Gray – an eminently respectable novelist and reviewer – sounds about as naughty as a novel can get. Indeed, apart from her opening sentence ("It would be hard to find a place in Paris where Catherine Millet, author of the most pornographic best-seller published by a French woman in the last half century, has not made love – if one can still call it making love.") Madame Millet is a distinguished 53-year-old intellectual whose sexual adventures occurred mainly in the '70s. As to the content of Mme. du Plessix Gray's review, there really isn't a line I could quote here or in any other potentially family publication.

But according to Plessix Gray, Millet never proselytizes for sexual liberty and acknowledges that the conditions of her open marriage have incited fits of bitter jealousy. She avows having kicked her partner violently on the shins while he was making love to one particular woman, and to have wept bitterly over other of his infidelities. "The powerful contradictions created by principles of absolute sexual liberty can create inexpressible pain."

Vogue readers can look forward to the American edition being brought out by Grove Press this fall. The publisher, incidentally was Le Seuil, about as straitlaced and proper an old French publisher as you could find. Can this be what women want right now? One polite shudder from this corner.

The other Fed Ex package was the first issue of Organic Style, published by Rodale, which brings out Runner's World. Reading it – after Vogue – was as refreshing as a shower on a spring day in May. Organic Style certainly pleased this particular woman at any rate.