Adele for Vogue Magazine

Posted on Feb 14, 2012 in Fashion

Darlings, a simulation of Adele graces the cover of March’s Vogue.

Adele featured in the March 2012 issue of Vogue magazine photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman. Hair: Luigi Murenu for John Frieda. Makeup: Lucia Pieroni for Clé de Peau Beauté.

On her personality: “I am quite loud and bolshie. I’m a big personality. I walk into a room, big and tall and loud.”

On her voice troubles: “I’ve been singing properly every day since I was about fifteen or sixteen and I have never had any problems with my voice, ever. I’ve had a sore throat here and there, had a cold and sung through it, but that day it just went while I was onstage in Paris during a radio show. It was literally like someone had pulled a curtain over it.”

On hating the red carpet: “I hate the red carpet. I don’t feel insecure, I just feel like, Oh, I don’t want to do this. I literally get a stomach cramp. At the VMA’s last year I felt really out of my comfort zone because there were so many superstars there. But that’s been the case from day one. I never feel like, Oh, yeah, I should be here. And I was missing my best friend’s hen night. So I was a bit bitter that I wasn’t there, to be perfectly honest.”

On her performance style. “I definitely think that less is more. I don’t think I could pull it off, doing an elaborate show. There are a couple of songs that are worthy of a few explosions and dancing teams and stuff like that. But I would feel really uncomfortable displaying my music like that. I just want to sing it. I don’t want to perform with my body.”

On writing the lyrics to her songs: “I have no idea where it comes from. I don’t read literature. I don’t have a very big capacity for language and words. I’m quite limited when it comes to just chatting. But my head comes alive when I’m writing music, and I start using words and describing emotions I had no idea existed in me. In person, I can never talk about my feelings either. If you were my fellow and we were having a serious conversation, I’d be laughing. Or just crying. I can never be articulate with how something is making me feel. I can never find the words.”

Despite the excessive resizing and contouring, these are great pictures. Adele’s an uncommonly beautiful woman and, unlike a whole lot of the women who grace the pages of Vogue, her personality still manages to punch through the wall of makeup, lighting and digital tweaking that attempts to make her less real. You can’t make Adele less real, Vogue; no matter how hard you try to.

[Photo Credit: vogue.com]

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Stefanos Mantyla

As I said earlier, one of the few in today’s music industry that has any level of taste. Of course she is famous not because of that but because she is British, but still…
- Anonymous
  
  Oh? I thought her fame was due to her excellent songs and voice. How silly of me!
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2ZGSQMHRCO7LAIOWG2HD74V6XU Marcie Dreyfuss
    
    Er, I love her attitude and her personality but her voice and songwriting skills are strictly okay. Nothing to lose sleep over. I’d take PJ Harvey over her any day of the week.
Anonymous

…and I guess that’s “plus-size” for Vogue. Everyone’s airbrushed within an inch of their life, so it’s not surprising. I wonder if that trend will ever fall away and a need for reality in pictures will return. Fingers crossed!
Anonymous

None of these pictures really suits her. It’s not that she doesn’t look great (and well re-touched); rather, it’s that this kind of photograph seems inauthentic for her. I say that mainly as an indictment of Vogue, but it’s probably also the fact that she’s a singer, not a model, and fairly new to the fame game. But just to reiterate: I’m not saying she looks bad.
- Anonymous
  
  Vogue’s cover story shots have been getting more and more boring. they now tell virtually no story through photos.
  - Anonymous
    
    Funny because back when Anna Wintour first came in, Vogue did some fairly unusual covers. Kind of disappeared when models left Vogue’s covers and celebrities took their place.
http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza

Love, love, love you, Tom and Lorenzo. You write exactly what the rest of us are thinking. Adele’s so real, the entertainment world’s not really ready for her. On the Grammy’s she made Nicki Manaj and Lady Gaga look like the ridiculous desperate-for-attention whores they are.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Heather-Snedeker-Innis/519824122 Heather Snedeker Innis
  
  Couldn’t agree with you more!
- Anonymous
  
  So tired of people needing to knock one woman down or call her a whore in order to bring another up. Success and talent are not zero-sum games.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HREPOWNBVUBRIVPQCF3ST2IKDM Euphory
    
    Yeah it’s not like GaGa can’t sing or write her own music, and it’s not like Katy Perry can’t sing or write her own music. They are just different performers/singers.
  - http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
    
    Actually I wrote “attention whore”, which is different all together.
    - Anonymous
      
      Not all that different really.
      - http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
        
        Lol. Are you being facetious, or contentious?
      - Anonymous
        
        Can I be both?
  - Anonymous
    
    Just because you’ve heard a phrase before does not mean you should repeat it without consideration. What makes a woman who craves attention a whore? All pop stars crave attention; to believe otherwise is naive. Only women will be called a whore for that.
    
    And furthermore, you said “desperate-for-attention” space whores, so if you did intend to mean “desperate attention whores” you expressed that poorly. But I would find even the latter phrase pretty gross.
  - amanda crow
    
    Great comment!
- http://www.wordydoodles.com WordyDoodles
  
  Love how you put this: “Adele’s so real, the entertainment world’s not really ready for her.”
- muzan-e
  
  The thing is, I remember watching a video of Gaga perform before she was Gaga. I hadn’t much respected her as a musician before then; it was difficult to see her sometimes through the sea of T&A, difficult to be certain how much of her voice was in fact her voice. Then a friend directed me to this video, which was just a camcorder set up in a pub – pretty raucous crowd, plenty of drinks all around, tiny band on the stage with an electric keyboard. She climbed onto that stage, flashed the crowd a big old grin while she growled at them – and then she started playing.
  
  That girl’s voice blew that place apart. By the end of the video, a reasonably receptive crowd had become a cheering, happy crowd – and she’d earned that. Not with her clothes, and not with her persona, but with raw, gorgeous talent and a lot of hard work.
  
  I don’t know if the entertainment world’s ready for people who aren’t willing to embody a persona. I do think that Gaga’s reached the point where she can create and recreate herself (and create, period) with a reasonable amount of freedom. But I have respect for the musician behind the guise – much as I do for Minaj, who views the industry as an industry, clearly has no illusions whatsoever about anything she’s doing, and like Gaga has some real, raw talent behind that persona. But y’know…
  
  Adele’s so real, the entertainment world’s not really ready for her.
  
  Yes. Yes. And Yes again. She’s giving ‘em something to think about, and thank goodness for it! *g*
  - http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
    
    I totally agree, as I adore Gaga too. But then, dare she come out in a fancy black dress, perfect make up, and sing her heart out? Or does she feel she needs to glam it up in order to be taken seriously? Nicki Manaj – flash in the pan – mark my word.
    Adele is not only blasting out unique “pop” songs that have roots in something like a Peggy Lee of yore genre, but she’s also not marketing herself the way most other pop stars have in the recent past (Beyonce, Gaga, Madonna, Katy Perry, Pink, Rhianna)
    I bet her instant success (remember she’s only 23, fresh out of Arts school) took her by surprise as much as it did everyone else. Maybe the time has come for a new generation of real, pure artists. I thought Norah Jones was quite unique and real when she came along and really, she should make a comeback. I miss her.
    - http://twitter.com/NC_Meg Megan
      
      I don’t think the fancy black dress and just singing is Gaga’s style, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t see how her being a theatrical performer takes away from her talent. She’s hardly the first person with actual talent to prefer theatrics (I think Queen, Madonna, Cher, and Elton John fall in that category and they are all legends.) As people have said, they’re two different artists with two different styles and I’m not sure why they get compared so much.
      
      Nicki Minaj is another story. No comment there.
      - http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
        
        You’re right about the theatrical artists. They can be so very campy and fun, can’t they? I suppose one main connection between Gaga and Adele is their youth, and how they both sort of came out of nowhere real fast.
      - frances rossi
        
        I think Nicki Minaj has a ton of talent as a rap artist. She was the only female nominated in the rap category and girl can rap faster than anyone. I think she definitely is fun and has a niche and we can’t all be playing it straight as singers. We do need some to be over the top and some to be outrageous!
      - Anonymous
        
        I don’t feel qualified to comment on Nicki because I don’t listen to rap so I don’t know if she’s actually talented or average, you know? (Although I will say Superbass is catchy as hell and I’m always interested in seeing what Nicki is wearing on the RC.) I totally agree, though, we need some over the top artists to balance things out. It would be so boring f every artist was serious all the time!
    - muzan-e
      
      Or on the other hand, dare she come out in an egg and expect that anyone will care how she sings after she emerges? *g* I’ll always wonder to what degree she’s been taken seriously not because of the glam, but despite its most raucous extremes. But then, I’ll always wonder to what degree Minaj’s insanities are either a mockery of the industry – or a game of No Seriously, How Much Can I Get Away With? *g* There’s a perfectly canny brain under that pink hair -
      
      Just uh, ignore her attempts at R&B. Yeah? I don’t know what’s going on there. I just keep hoping it doesn’t continue.
      
      Back to topic, though: thank you for placing Adele’s music in context for me! *g* I don’t listen to enough pop to really have a ‘feel’ for it; I admire the hell out of her voice, but I don’t listen to it very often, and I’d never have made the Peggy Lee connection. That’s interesting. And what I find so satisfying right now is that she’s educating the industry: Hey, look, guys… there is a market for voices with some substance to them! Pay attention! *g*
    - Anonymous
      
      Interesting though that the other pop stars you listed were all American. I see Adele as being very British. We don’t really do that big persona, massive stage show thing here. I see Adele as being in the tradition of singers like Alison Moyet, or to go back further, Lulu and Dusty Springfield.
  - http://twitter.com/NC_Meg Megan
    
    I’d LOVE to see the video you’re talking about. I love this one. Yes, she’s wearing the giant hair bow but it’s just her and the piano. I love it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7HvURBhMGE&ob=av2e
    - muzan-e
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b5mgPmw2zw
      It’s a terrible video of a great performance. And I’m not just saying that because the song’s catchy as hell! *g*
      
      Thank you so much for the link, too – I don’t always love the music, but her voice wins me over every – single – time. It’s huge and rich, and in today’s era of breathy little vocoder funnels, I find it quite delicious. *g*
  - http://twitter.com/NC_Meg Megan
    
    I’d LOVE to see the video you’re talking about. I love this one. Yes, she’s wearing the giant hair bow but it’s just her and the piano. I love it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7HvURBhMGE&ob=av2e
  - Anonymous
    
    Yes, this is why I don’t get annoyed by her really. I was as dubious as anyone when she started showing up everywhere (her music isn’t really my type of thing) then I heard her do an acoustic set on the radio. Her, a piano and, being radio, no showmanlike distractions. She was amazing.
    
    As for Adele, she came from the same stable as Winehouse but she has her head screwed on far more securely!
Jennifer Hamner

She IS a beautiful woman. So while the photos are amazing, all the photoshopping really makes them bittersweet and nauseating. She was beautiful at the Grammys and doesn’t need her body/face resculpted.
- Cathy S
  
  Exactly. The pictures from the Grammy’s were so beautiful, no retouching required.
  - Anonymous
    
    Yes! I kept looking at my television screen, in HD even, thinking, she is so uncommonly gorgeous that this is unbelievable. No weird make-up or accessories or overdone window dressing. Just her. Stunning.
    - http://www.GiftedCollector.com Nancy Abrams
      
      Adele has great bone structure and she’s learned out to emphasize the good and minimize the rest. There’s a lot of contouring that goes into making Adele look gorgeous. It would be interesting to see her without makeup.
- leilah
  
  It’s probably just me — but in her posed photos, Adele totally looks like mid- to late-90′s Boy George; their lips and nose are a different, but the shape of their faces, cheeks, jaw-line and chin are dead-on…again, to me.
Anonymous

Am I the only one out there who is thoroughly sick of Adele? She’s beautiful, but man, if I hear another depressing song of hers, I’ll scream. Girl needs to fall in love and write something that doesn’t make me want to stick a fork in my own eye.

Sorry, just my opinion.
- Anonymous
  
  She is now in love, so maybe next album will be more upbeat. In an interview, she said she is not going to keep writing songs like on “21″, but that was where she was in her life then. I love her, but since she is so famous now, her songs get played and played over and over again until you can’t stand them.
  - Anonymous
    
    I agree-they get so overplayed, it’s easy to become tired of them. Top 40 radio stations don’t have a lot of variety….but I’d rather listen to Adele over and over than Bieber or Britney.
- http://twitter.com/ILikeShiny Cindi Williams
  
  How dare you not like something everyone else likes?!? (For me, it’s Don McLean’s “American Pie”, and the fact I’ve never seen Top Gun)
  - http://profiles.google.com/sara.e.munoz Sara Munoz
    
    Be glad of that. “Top Gun” is HORRIBLE.
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EDI2DLE7DE3YPW2ONIHBWOVHMA ecallaw
      
      Sacrilege!
    - http://twitter.com/ILikeShiny Cindi Williams
      
      I know there’s a guy named Goose who dies (I think), and they sing Righteous Brothers in a bar. Otherwise, I think I participated in that piece of pop culture vicariously. It’s like my friend who can quote Seinfeld memes and hasn’t seen an episode.
  - http://twitter.com/IamDaBee Antonija Mitt
    
    Oh gosh I want to stick red hot pokers in my eyes when I hear “American Pie”. I hear two notes of that on the rcar radio and I can’t push the button fast enough. (Happens with any Paul McCartney song as well. So shoot me.)
    - http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
      
      Well, I can’t stand Beyonce’s “Put a friggen ring on it.” Talk about playing a crap song with crap lyrics to death. Gawd.
- Anonymous
  
  maybe not listening to her songs would help
  - Anonymous
    
    I’m tryin’ – but it means I’m constantly switching channels or turning off the radio. I’m getting a callus from hitting the buttons. I hope JackieOBlue is right – she has a fabulous voice and I’d love to hear her do something that doesn’t merit a skit on SNL.
    - Anonymous
      
      To me it’s not really the overplaying. I do not find the songs to have such high musical quality. There, I said it. Compare it to 70′s and 80′s pop/rock. The standards have dropped considerably IMO.
      She has a ton of potential though; the music needs a better producer and some more delicate and deeper arrangements. It’s too “in your face”. But it is OF COURSE far above Gaga and the likes.
      
      And I also love that she makes it about the music and not about the lights, dancers, costumes, smoke and special effects on stage.
      - Anonymous
        
        This album needed better sequencing/pacing. She needed one more upbeat song. It starts with two of the more rollicking songs, then it is all ballads after that. She needed one more uptempo song right where Side B would have been on an album.
    - Anonymous
      
      She watched that skit during her interview with Anderson Cooper and laughed her head off.
      
      I love sad songs and never listen to the radio so I haven’t gotten sick of her, but she did talk about wanting to write happier music next. And joked about having to break up with her boyfriend if that doesn’t work.
    - Anonymous
      
      just listen to your iPod for a while then, or switch to classical radio station….. You know, it will pass….. I don’t know, the radio stations I listen to don’t play any Adele… so that’s why I have her blasting from my iPhone constantly
    - Anonymous
      
      Ha ha GT someone agrees w/ you. On 60 minutes Adele said she was sick of her sadness too, and would never do a “break up” album again.
    - b starry
      
      60 Minutes Interview: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57376067/the-year-of-adele/
      
      Anderson Cooper: Do you think you could write without having your heart broken?
      
      Adele: Well I hope so. ‘Cause I’m madly in love and I don’t want to be like “Babe, I’m sorry, we’ve got to break up. I’ve got a new album to deliver.” He’d f*****g hate that. Also, I can’t write another breakup record. That would be a real cliche. It would be just like a boring, running theme. I think people would be like, “No, that’s enough now, cheer up.” You know what I mean? I’m not worried about it. If it gets like five, 10 years down the line, I will. I’ll break up with him.
- Anonymous
  
  Make that fork a rusty one!
  - Anonymous
    
    It’s the only kind, baby! :p
- Anonymous
  
  I hear you. But I can honestly say I’m not sick of her yet. Mostly because my daughter is the one who listens to her…and my daughter listens to some awful pop music, too. So, if she’s listening to LMFAO and switches to Adele, I breath a sigh of relief.
  - Anonymous
    
    Well to be fair, switching from LMFAO to whale sounds would be an improvement.
- http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
  
  On her 60 Minutes interview she actually mentioned just that! She is in love right now, and a lot happier than when she was with that guy who propelled her to write “21″ when they broke up. Trust me, her next album will be happy love songs.
- Anonymous
  
  Check out her previous album from 2008, “19″. It is really gorgeous too but a different beat. She does write her songs from where she is at the moment so look for more upbeat, happy tunes on the next album.
- http://twitter.com/zombuki Brigitte Coovert
  
  They are songs to be sad to, I can’t handle them anymore, though I loved the first single. Her interview is a bit like her songs, relentlessly focused on the negative. All I got from the quotes is that she hates the red carpet, hates performing, doesn’t feel like she deserves her fame, doesn’t read, and feels like a completely inarticulate person. Like her songs, her interview is overwhelmingly depressing.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1179942711 Quincy Katz
  
  100% agree!
  She beautiful and talented, but the whiney chick music HAS TO STOP.
- Anonymous
  
  I got tired of her voice /very/ quickly, so, while I think she’s beautiful and very good for the music industry, I’d be quite happy never to hear one of her songs again. I don’t mind sad breakup-type songs, but I’d prefer them sung by someone else.
- muzan-e
  
  ….. her music is not really my thing (she said quietly, ducking). But that’s okay. The music I love annoys many of my friends. Especially the drone metal. No-one in their right mind would like drone metal… *g*
- Anonymous
  
  Oh my gosh, thank you! They ARE depressing and on 24/7. Rolling in the Deep wasn’t bad but I’ve heard it a million times and if I never heard it again, I’d be a happy girl.
- Anonymous
  
  Love her voice, love her authenticity, love her attitude. She has great potential. But, as a 40-something woman, the teenage angst of her lyrics doesn’t really speak to me, which is why it’s “like and respect” rather than “love” for me. Can’t wait to see what she’s putting out in 10, 20, 30 years, though!
  - http://twitter.com/vintagesewing VFL Miss Helenes
    
    As another 40 something, I have to say her album speaks volumes to me. But then again, I went through a divorce after a marriage of 24 years in 2011. I find it crazy how a girl so young can hit the exact feelings of something so horrendous. And “One and Only” says, almost word for word, many of the things my new guy said to me when we started our relationship. It’s not just a teenaged angst thing. It’s a brokenhearted, where the hell am I going in my life, what the f*** happened to me thing. I love her.
    - Anonymous
      
      Oh, I’ve unfortunately been dumped (and dumped on) far too many times in my decades on this planet, and there is a certain universality to that feeling, no matter what our age is. But I look forward to the breadth that more experience and maturity will bring to her lyrics. And I’m so sorry about your divorce; that must have been devastating.
- Anonymous
  
  I think I saw today that she intends to take some time off (and work on her relationship(s))??
http://joyouslifesf.wordpress.com Kiltdntiltd

I think she is magnificent looking. Regardless of the “work” that’s been done. And ANY chance for a woman other than a sample size to be on a Vogue cover is cause for cheering.
- Anonymous
  
  I actually have to applaude Vogue for not using the close-up shot as the cover shot. I feel like most of the time they feature a woman who isn’t a sample size they only do extremely tight shots of their face. Regardless, it’s wonderful that someone who is both beautiful (though not as much so, by Wintour standards) and has actual substance is featured…airbrushing be damned.
  - Anonymous
    
    I agree. When I saw this, I thought about that other cover shot of her we saw on T Lo not too long ago. I think the cover showed her face from just below the mouth to just above the eyebrows.
  - Anonymous
    
    Yeah, but on the cover she looks thin with big boobs…not exactly a shape shunned in the entertainment industry.
  - Anonymous
    
    Yeah, but on the cover she looks thin with big boobs…not exactly a shape shunned in the entertainment industry.
http://twitter.com/foodycatAlicia foodycatAlicia

I hope Adele never gets the edges of her personality airbrushed off. I love the bolshy soundbites!
- http://twitter.com/asciident Melissa Della
  
  Just what I was thinking. Refreshing to see someone not being bullied by some publicist to give crap soundbites for these mag interviews.
http://asskickingadviser.com/ Ass Kicking Adviser

Does she really need to be corseted Vogue? Really? oy. As if the only clothes a woman her size could possibly wear would involve a corset.

On 60 Minutes the other night Adele’s fabulously raucous personality was so refreshing you realized why her performances – even when she is just sitting on a stool or standing at a mike – have so much punch and emotion.
The other thing that you couldn’t help noticing is, like you siad, how uncommonly beautiful she is. Anderson Cooper asked her some stupid question about how she isn’t the typical pop star (which granted is true) but he seemed to be hedging about her weight and I was like,’look at her face! she’s not exactly the plain-jane-next-door in the looks department!’
- Anonymous
  
  That interview made me fall in love with her, though, despite some of AC’s questions. Head over heels. I had the same response to the photos in Vogue – a corset, really? And all the black shadows under her chin and all over her neck are disturbing. Can’t take away her beauty and soul, thank heavens.
- http://twitter.com/Wilde_Hunt Larissa
  
  I’m not a big fan of how they photoshopped Adele into a poor facsimile of herself but thinking of corsets as instruments of oppression is a pretty outdated view. I design corsets professionally for my company Wilde Hunt Corsetry and my clients are women of all sizes and shapes who wear corsets because they find them beautiful. If you would like to learn more about modern corsets I invite you to view my website – wildehunt.com
- Anonymous
  
  Unsurprisingly I can’t let this one pass
  Why not put her in a corset? She has a fantastic shape for one. Why not play up and emphasise that hourglass just as you’d pick shoes to flatter an ankle or a skirt length or a hairstyle that brings out your cheekbones etc etc.In addition, if she’s at all self-conscious about her weight – and I’m not saying she is, or should be. I thinks she’s stunning as she is – but if she is at all, then a corset is a great confidence booster. Because it’s the first time I’ve seen a whole shoot of her when she’s really playing up the sultry and looking like she knows she looks hot without getting the giggles at some point. I’ve seen too many previously self-conscious women pose in front of the mirror when they put one on to not wonder if there’s a link.
Anonymous

Love her music, love her personality. She is so real and down to earth. Unfortunately, vogue thinks we can only stand to look at her if she is a size 2. Idiots!
http://twitter.com/aStudiobytheSea a Studio by the Sea

Nice pix, but I can just feel the photoshop, squeezing her into a thinner shape.
Anonymous

The pictures are beautiful, but you have to wonder about the point of resizing a person who is well known – we all know what size she is, what is the perceived benefit of making her unrecognizable?
Anonymous

Overall, the photos are lovely. I just don’t like the one that they chose for the cover.
Victoria Perry

It really bothers me that they changed her size. She’s a bigger woman. Everyone knows it. Why change her?
Anonymous

I have such admiration for this woman and her incredible voice. Very, very down to earth and genuine, and a singing voice that would melt butter. Everyone else is just margarine.
http://twitter.com/catherineeileen Catherine Hann

One thing Vogue didn’t change is Adele’s hair color, WHICH I COVET.
http://twitter.com/lelepimenta Alexandra Pimenta

I couldn’t love her more if I tried. I find her gorgeous in every possible sense of the word.

What strikes me the most in all that, is that, while showing my mom her songs on YouTube ( with subtitles for her to understand), I noticed the huge amount of brazilian men commenting on how gorgeous and talented she was (and asking them to marry them or birth their babies… lol).

Knowing how obcessed brazilians are with body fitness and how prejudice against overweight women they are, it showed me the power that Adele is. She’s changing a whole country’s [severe] cultural view on women. She may be shy, anti-social or have stage fright ( as she stated before), but she never apologizes for who she is and she always looks gorgeous and so damn sophisticate.

She reminds me of Helen Mirren, in the sense that she exudes so much talent and sensuality and sureness of who she is, that people just instinctively respond to it.
Anonymous

I want to be her best friend!!
Anonymous

Class act all the way..
- http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
  
  What’s funny is that she LOOKS classy, but she’s an adorable foul-mouthed cockney slapper!
Anonymous

I especially like the 5th and last photos. There’s something about the angle of her face on the cover shot that makes her look not quite herself. Also, the way that the text has been arranged, her face is fighting with her (very nice) cleavage for attention.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1253053236 Belle Burnett

I agree that the photos are lovely, but so much photoshopping! Do they think no one will notice?
Anonymous

I think those are gorgeous pics ~such a romantic point of view! Clearly they’re p’shopped (her chin looks like a pair of boobies in the one pic) but she’s a beautiful girl with a stunning face, nonetheless. Someone mentioned she might have lost quite some weight because of the throat surgery. Is it possible that she did loose a lot of weight and was smaller when these were taken? She could just be putting a few of those pounds back on now… it’s probably been a couple months since these were taken, right? ~ Still love her. Though her nose still looks totally different to me.
- http://twitter.com/lelepimenta Alexandra Pimenta
  
  I was going to mention this but my post was too long already. She was visibly much thinner at the Grammy’s. Maybe those pictures are fairly new. I agree.
  
  Still, photoshop’d to no end, for sure.
  - Anonymous
    
    I noticed the weight loss at the Grammy’s as well. She looked lovely with the lighter hair and all, but just the same, she is a gorgeous woman.
- http://twitter.com/asciident Melissa Della
  
  She may well have lost a few pounds, but Vogue and all the rest photoshop everyone to unreal sizes. So naturally I suspect that even if they had a thinner Adele to start with they’ve worked them over to make her even more so.
  
  Beautiful talent. Shame everyone in media’s so concerned with her figure.
Rachel Moss

What the heck have they done to her face in the cover shot? It looks like play-doh that’s been reshaped. So weird! Like she’s been pinched. Serious over-contouring.
http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/ Vic

Stunning woman, who did not need to be photoshopped, which they did. Those eyes. Those lips. That wonderful chin. She’s unique.
MilaXX

She is so awesome I’m not even going to bother with yet another photoshop rant. I will say that despite her penchant for dressing in all black, and retro she looks good with these colors. The deep reds and navy blue suit her. The shapes are still very feminine, but more modern.
Anonymous

wouldnt it be nice if they at least let her be close to the size she is? just close. & it wouldnt be nice, actually. it would be revolutionary.

i hate to use such a big word, no f’ing pun intended, but boy did they, once again, drop the everlovin ball. if you will. it’s in many ways like the unbelievably ever continuing lack of black people [ie the vanity fair cover, the french elle covers]. it just makes me wanna smack people.

cos theres also this, which is something i remember from way way back in my ridiculous actress/model years. i’ve mentioned it before, not just here. in fact, i’ve probably mentioned it too many places, too many times. but one of the things that people do not realize about models is that many of them are not particularly attractive at all. theyre tall, you bet, theyre thin, double bet–but lots of times thats it. those are their individual & collective selling points. not always, obviously. yr always gonna have yr dorian leighs & suzy parkers or even yr fabulous looking kate moss or my personal all time all round favorites, pat cleaveland & penelope tree [ymmv for who you like. i like odder faces. anyway] but so often the women just are not that attractive. they are of a type, but not gorgeous. more often than most people would think, i think.

so here vogue goes, the magazine has a woman who is actually seriously pretty, beautiful–whichever word you want. obviously true, across the board. i cant see just about anyone denying that–even the scrappy little scourges around who would qualify her as having such a pretty face. F E H.

but vogue still still cant see the forest for those disgustingly rounder trees standing in the way. what do they do? they hire a good designer, true, to photoshop everything she is away. they do their damndest to force someone everyone knows does not look like vogue thinks she should look into someone who almost maybe kinda sorta if we try real real hard looks like vogue thinks she should look. damn them to hell. they are doing women a disservice. they are doing adele a disservice.

it sounds so stupid but it is more true than anyone knows just how badly eating disorders tear up yr life. they take up yr time, they take up yr thoughts, they take up all the energy you might put into something of real value– you instead expend all of who you are obsessively, punishingly worrying whether you ate four crackers or six crackers. it’s ridiculous revolting & ludicrous but this happens to more women than could be imagined. & it’s bad. & it seems to be changing. & adele, here, is one of the reasons it does. so what does vogue do? something progressive, something that should be ordinary but is instead–of all things–radical?

no, of course not. they shave a round peg into a much slighter rectangular hole. cos the idiot minds that run the magazine are so narrow they cannot see beyond that hole’s width. i guarantee that this misrepresentation will be not overlooked but will, instead, be damaging to a decent percentage of the young women who finally thought they might be okay, maybe, cos they for once saw a celebrity who looked like them & was not continually shamed for it.
- Anonymous
  
  YES.
- muzan-e
  
  but one of the things that people do not realize about models is that many of them are not particularly attractive at all.
  
  Amen. For Exhibit A, allow me to submit several candid shots of my beloved Sasha P, who outside the photoshoot tends to look a little like an extraterrestrial! A huge-eyed, tiny-mouthed, mugging-for-the-camera extraterrestrial. It’s so cute! But so alien! *g*
  
  (ETA: Actually, I think she’s completely gorgeous in candids as well. *g* But this is a matter of personal taste, not convention.)
Anonymous

Shots #5 and #6 are just beautiful as fashion art, if not as accurate photography. I will add my voice to the “why so heavily retouched?” chorus here, even as my logic tells me that this is a fashion and beauty magazine, which makes money from ads, which are not seen unless people buy the magazine, which they may be less likely to do if they are presented with a cover image that strays too far from the industry-dictated norm. Then I remember that we consumers support this vicious circle by actually purchasing said magazines, thereby relinquishing our right to bitch about the process.

I’m glad she cleaned up at the Grammys and is basking in the affirmation of her musical (and sales-generating) talents, which will with luck last her whole life–and will not be disheartened by the insult perpetrated on her by art designers and their mouses.
http://twitter.com/Nancer Nancer

Why can’t they just leave a beautiful woman as she is? We all know that Adele doesn’t look like this – it’s a shame.
http://profiles.google.com/mercbubble42 Jessica O’Connell

Some of these barely look like her, but in the ones that I can tell it’s Adele, she looks gorgeous.
http://caseemarie.com Casee Marie

Bravo on this one, guys! You approached it perfectly. It’s a shame that Vogue tweaked the pictures – and it’s a shame that we can’t really expect anything else from any magazine right now, on any model whatsoever – but they can’t change who Adele is and what she “big and tall and loudly” represents. So, in my eyes, this at least is a step in the right direction. I’d rather celebrate Adele than critique the “falseness” in the pictures, because in the end what comes through is beautiful Adele, and absolutely fabulous clothes.
Anonymous

Her words are a little too self-depricating to me.
Anonymous

She’s really beautiful and I loved her album of the year acceptance speech. She just seems so refreshingly real.
I really like these photos. She may not be model-sized, but she looks great in these clothes and she’s working the camera. Man, I would love to have lips like that.
butter nut

LUV HER! that cover is an atrocity, but she looks beautiful in all the rest of the photos, despite the rabid airbrushing.
Anonymous

Love the black and white blouse in picture six.
Anonymous

I love the shot of her in the red dress with the black corset, just stunning. They’re all pretty, really, and I agree that she still looks mostly like herself.
Judy_J

She’s a beautiful girl with a beautiful voice. I hope that despite the maelstrom of publicity and adoration she remains true to herself.
Anonymous

These copies of Vogue should be pulled off the shelves for fraud and deceptive advertising. Anna Wintour should be ashamed of herself for what she’s done to Adele here.

On a side note: Why couldn’t her best friend have rescheduled the “hen party” due to Adele attending the VMAs?
- Anonymous
  
  Maybe the hen night had been long since booked. Maybe going away somewhere that was already arranged. Maybe friends coming a long distance or who’d booked leave from work that they couldn’t change. Maybe no other date she could have it before her wedding.
  Most of all, I really don’t think Adele would want or let a friend change all her and everyone else’s plans on her account.
Anonymous

I suppose even really skinny people get photoshopped, since hardly anyone has a face as beautiful as Adele’s. I thought she looked spectacular at the Grammys. Her personality is refreshing and normal and I respect her for her genuineness.
Anonymous

And girlfriend can WERQ the shit out of a corset.
- http://twitter.com/chylde bellalozza
  
  It takes a big rack to work an under-the-bust corset like that!
Anonymous

In all honesty, even with the contouring, make up and excessive photoshop, this is probably the best editorial I’ve seen in Vogue in a long, long while. So there’s that, Wintour.
http://twitter.com/TheRealSandraOh Sandra Oh

She’s a stunning woman.
Anonymous

The cover is a little wonky, but the rest of the shots are beautiful. Amen to your last line, T Lo.

I love how honest she is. She doesn’t put down the industry or other artists, but she comes across as so real and such a breath of fresh air. I live that she is my 12 yo’s favorite artist.
http://frockpaperscissors.blogspot.com/ kvlm

Perfection.
http://twitter.com/jaythenerdkid Aaminah Khan

The photos are gorgeous; I stopped and stared at each one.

I wish they hadn’t Photoshopped some of her curviness away, because these would have been just as arresting had they allowed Adele to be displayed at her actual size.

To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of her music, but there’s no denying she’s gorgeous, and she appears to be a real class act. That I can appreciate.
Anonymous

LOVE the fifth photo, where she’s gazing upward. For previous magazine covers, I’ve really hated the way they’ve done her up. In fact, I don’t really like this cover either. But I had never seen her alive and moving until the Grammys, and I thought she looked stunning. She has such a pretty face, there’s no need to cover it up with drag makeup.
Anonymous

There’s a reason I don’t buy Vogue…
actually many reasons, but this really yanks my chain (lol, I typed *chin* first).
And it’s a great chin, my dil and newest grandson have it too.

I once quit AARP magazine because of the excessive job they did on Goldie Hawn. It’s the entire magazine industry.
https://profiles.google.com/104791269167429064986/about?hl=en Judy S

Good post on beautiful pictures of a beautiful woman whom it would be nice to see unedited.
Anonymous

These pictures are beautiful, I especially love her hair in this color. It really brings out her eyes. I hope she goes back to it soon.
Anonymous

ahhh yes, quite righteous of Vogue not just to close crop her fact but to ALSO present her boobs and corseted waist and then airbrush the life out of it for good measure. Don’t even get me started on what they did to her jawline neck and cheeks … point is she doesn’t need the heavy handed photo-shopping, she is quite stunning, and even more beautiful without it …. in other words, no credit to Vogue; they are taking advantage of her stardom to sell magazines, while maintaining their narrow vision of what is beauty.
- Anonymous
  
  Yes. Yes. Yes.
  
  Remember Vogue, even those of us who are not fans saw Her Actual Self as appeared on a recent prominent awards show. Anyone who knows who that is, also knows what she really looks like, even if they don’t follow her career or stalk photos of her on the Internet.
CQAussie

She is a stunning woman and I love her honesty. Breathtaking beauty.
Anonymous

The “contouring” as you call it — more properly the phenomenally sexist photoshopping hackjob committed on images of a perfectly lovely woman in a misguided and despicable effort to make her more aligned with Vogue’s bulimic sense of beauty–is unforgiveable. Boo & hiss!
http://ultimatevariety.blogspot.com/ Thombeau

Well said, T.Lo. She is gorgeous.
Anonymous

Why did they photoshop Adele into Christina Hendricks, when it’d be easier to get Christina herself?
Anonymous

I am quite loud and bolshie.

Watch it, girl. The Republicans will start an investigation and want to ban you.
Anonymous

Adele is a stunning beauty for the ages, and I am fascinated by how she accesses a part of herself in songwriting that she doesn’t locate in her daily life. I’m mesmerized by how damned gorgeous she is, and I love her taste.
Anonymous

“You can’t make Adele less real, Vogue; no matter how hard you try to.”

Well, they can’t make HER less real. Her images here, I’m not sure I agree.
Anonymous

She is lucious. And funny as hell.
Anonymous

The picture I think is the most beautiful is the one that looks most like her, the one just above “On writing the lyrics to her songs.” Brava, Adele!
Anonymous

But they CAN go out of their way never to actually show her entire body!
Anonymous

The other day an ad for a photo shopping program appeared above the masthead on this site.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on it and took a quick tour. One of the main features was reshaping (cutting down) round faces, no less erasing lines, spots, freckles, any humanity or personality. Apparently, it’s way too easy, even for amateurs, so I guess art directors can’t resist.

However, I’d rather see the actual Adele on the cover of Vogue than the her Barbie doll.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506473106 Mori Clark

its a testament to her powerful beauty that she can still shine through even under all the photoshopping. the second to last picture is absolutely stunning, though, colour-wise and compositionally. if they’d tone it down on making their models look like they have no pores, the artistry of these photoshoots would shine through more instead of being a distraction and controversial.
Anonymous

“You can’t make Adele less real, Vogue; no matter how hard you try to.” AMEN.
Anonymous

I think she is so very beautiful. Her voice is beautiful and her body is beautiful. I would love to have her body.
http://twitter.com/yankeefoxtrot Alex McGeagh

I am not nearly so offended as most of the Bitter Kittens about the photoshopping. My main reason is this…

If she had not had any photoshopping done at all, I would propose that an equal or higher number of people would have kvetched about how they deliberately made a curvy woman look bad and unflattering. Since Vogue hardly has a penchant for featuring anything but extremely skinny models…I imagine people thinking it was deliberate for a curvy model, but they would NEVER do that to a skinny one!

Also, I wonder if the photographers and art directors are afraid of the backlash from the covergirls (whether Adele or anyone else) and their reps/PR folks if they DON’T photoshop them into oblivion. I’m also a photographer (though portraits aren’t my bag and I don’t use PS a lot, admittedly) – and lots can be done to change a person’s look and perspective through skillful lighting with flashes, strobes, and modifiers. It’s quite remarkable actually.

She is a beautiful woman and I *do* think she still looks like Adele here, though the cover is so very obviously contoured. I wish there were less photos with her hand by her face…I think out of the photos featured here, there are 5 with that pose. Wish they’d picked something more diverse/interesting….
http://twitter.com/MandySCG MandyJane

I was late jumping on the Adele bandwagon, I honestly hadn’t heard of her until a few months ago. I love her voice, and think she is beautiful. It’s a shame magazines can’t let people be beautiful the way they are!
Anonymous

I love the black and white peasant blouse — clothing and photo. The rest of them are pretty representations of Adele. The cover is… Muppetlike. And the corset in that third photo down with the red brocadey thing is placed stupidly high. How could they blow THAT?
Anonymous

Adele is absolutely gorgeous and these pictures are wonderful!
Warmheartedgirl Seattle

Love.Her.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3AJ237ND3GAHDQJZ4TLCO4WLRA Emily

Amen!
oohsparkley!

I need Vogue to photoshop some pictures of me. I’m always sorely shocked and disappointed. Some fat, older lady in my place and in my clothes.
http://cheekypinky.wordpress.com/ Rebecca

Oh, lovely girl.

…And could someone please dress Hendricks in any of these clothes?
Pretty please?
Anonymous

I can’t enjoy these photos because they are not real. If anyone is real, it’s Adele. I mean, she had chewing gum in her mouth during her acceptance speeches. I’d like to see photos that do her justice, as she really is. Instead of “we’re going to change everything about you”.
Anonymous

I’m finding myself really confused about the degree to which they changed how she looks, since it was clear at the Grammys that she’s lost quite a bit of weight (I’m assuming due, at least in part, to throat surgery). I’m not saying they didn’t; I just mean I haven’t yet got my head around what the new real Adele looks like (other than lovely).

Generally I like these pictures; I love how many of them reference older styles of painting, when bodies like Adele’s were regularly depicted. The one where she’s lying down in what looks like a giant basket (? I didn’t notice how weird that was until I really looked at it) would be my favorite except for what looks like an inexplicable sunburn on her neck. What is going ON with that?
Anonymous

I love these. I’ve seen worse photoshop interferences. there’s a lot of careful posing and lighting here that’s doing a lot of work. And she has lost weight since the operation. But a gorgeous, luscious editorial.
Anonymous

She.Is.Stunning.
Anonymous

They did not need to carve her up–she is beautiful at her real size.
http://twitter.com/IamDaBee Antonija Mitt

I just saw her on a re-run of the Graham Norton Show, and even as she’s telling a silly story, she really does look this beautiful and has exquisitely flawless skin. And such a personality! I’d love to be her BFF.
Lisa

I love her to freaking death, but I’m wondering – did Vogue photoshop her thinner, or did she lose some weight after her surgery?
Anonymous

She is a beautiful young woman with a classic sense of style. I hate that Vogue whittled her down so much – she is happy with her looks, so why can’t they leave her be?

I hope she continues to remain authentically herself. Love the 60 minutes interview before the Grammy Awards. What a charmer she is.
Anonymous

She is a Goddess here. She looked HARRIBUL at teh Grammys!
kimberlini

Photo-shopped or not, Adele is a gorgeous woman. And she has a hell of a resemblance to Jean Shrimpton which I haven’t seen noted by Tom or Lo (Disappointed!).
Vitantonio D’Ambrosio

Wait! Did they just took the face from the second picture and superimposed it to another shot to make the cover?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1589131702 Jenna Gordon

makes me sick to see how altered she is in these pictures. what kind of jacked up message is this sending to people? you are worthy of being in our magazine but only after we have completely changed you.
Anonymous

They look good except the actual cover!! UGH!! Contour much???
Anonymous

Ditto — I love all of the photos except the cover, which is insane in pose, lighting, expression, styling.
Anonymous

I know it’s been going on for quite a while, but this mania for resizing, retouching, photoshopping already lovely women
is just out of control and it’s really, really creepy.
http://www.hdpixels.net/ HDpixels

ADELE is one of the beautiful lady on this planet & my favorite too.

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Adele for Vogue Magazine

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