Is Fashion The Sports Of Chicks? And If So, Isn't That Kind Of Scary?

The obvious implication of putting Gisele and Lebron James on the cover of Vogue's "Shape issue" is that fashion is the female equivalent of sports. Well, no, scratch that, it's not so much the implication as the explicit premise: "Gisele Bundchen," the story explains, is "the Lebron James of fashion modeling." As Vogue premises go, it's actually a fairly logical one. Modeling and athletics are the two fields wherein one can preposterous financial returns primarily on the basis of one's genes, and by genes I mean "bodies," and bodies are what the "shape" issue is about. Sure, the ideals are different: as Gisele points out, Lebron's foot is the size of her calf. In sports you have to work and train and psych yourself up and psych your opponents out and in modeling you basically have to deprive yourself of food and snort coke. But what's really so different about the two things? Since we all have to wear clothes, sports are arguably more pointless, unless you look at it as just sort of the "pornography" of warcraft — though don't we have videogames for that now? Whatev. It didn't totally hit me until I saw the whole Annie Leibowitz-shot spread, which matches up models up athletes and supermodels.

Olympic gold medalist Shaun White is photographed dropping in on a half-pipe as he is watched on the edge by a sullen, vaguely tormented-looking Daria Werbowy. Tormented by her five-inch peep-toe ankle boots? Or something deeper?


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Shaun was one of the first snowboarders to compete in the Olympics. Daria, the accompanying story notes, "is the first Lancome spokesperson to be invited inside the company's lipstick laboratories, among the lipstick scientists, to design her own lip colors, the Daria Collection. "The people who make lipstick are men," she says, "but I get them to try it on."

Unlike Gisele and LeBron, who have sort of a Homecoming Court jock/popular-but-it'll-never-last thing going on, you can actually see Shaun and Daria together; him and his skateboard and his dumb band and her and her eating disorder and her oufits and effortless-looking-but-totally-not-effortless hotness. Yeah, you know that couple. Is there anything more to her? You won't know until he dumps her for the next one.