Things to keep in mind:
The secret of æsthetics.
Having pored over a stack of past issues, I would argue that F--rie endeavors to cultivate in readers a quality of attention that registers the most diminutive details, that perceives the world as though under a spell. In an article about throwing “a magical midsummer night’s dream party,” the writer suggests inscribing guests’ names on “small leaves, bark, or beautiful pieces of fruit like green apples or small Japanese eggplants.” And in a homage to green tea, editor at large Laren Stover writes, “If you have a glass teapot, you can watch the pearls release and open like magical tendrils, mermaid’s hair or seaweed unfurling, deepening the water to emerald green.” This state of amplified, granular awareness, in which time slows as you watch the “undulating ballet in your teapot,” is one I have otherwise only achieved with psychedelic drugs.
F--rie’s overarching æsthetic, which I’ve spent more time parsing than I care to admit, is rather hallucinogenic itself: a mash-up of Medieval, Renaissance and Victorian influences, with hints of Celtic and classical Greco-Roman mythology and a little neo-paganism tossed in for good measure. F--ry tales, with their familiar signifiers and peculiar, unsettling dream logic, are useful shorthand for understanding the magazine’s visuals. The models sport scarlet Little Red Riding Hood cloaks or spectral white Miss Havisham frocks; they lie supine on leafy forest floors or gaze into the middle distance from snowy, windswept landscapes. In one 18-page spread shot by the Russian photographer Katerina Plotnikova, adolescent women in poufy-sleeved taffeta dresses embrace foxes and elk. (The editors have a fondness for interspecies images.) What’s startling about the photos is the élan with which they yoke together an innocent childhood id with ambitious, adult-word production: Thus a model in a lace-bodice gown wraps an actual fox around her neck like a fur stole; and 17th-century women with powdered bouffant wigs picnic at the bottom of the ocean while a pair of puffy white poodles look on.
—posted 3052 days ago
