Yes, Adele looks amazing on the cover of Vogue’s March 2016 issue. It’s her second time leading off the luxury fashion bible and, while Rolling Stone offered up a even more stunning look at the globe-conquering ballad master, it’s gorgeous.
That said, it’s also pretty much impossible to ignore just how much Photoshopping is going on here. What’s odd about the whole thing is that the digital wizardry seems not to actually slim or beautify the already very beautiful and very body-positive Adele. Rather, it all seems to be there to just make her look … different. Not, like, bad different or even good different. Just different. Take a look for yourself.
See?
Matter of fact, using Photoshop to make people look different—just plain, old different—seems to be going around a bit lately. This same month, Elle decided to make Brie Larson look unrecognizable through a combination of filter and digital trickery. With fashion magazines ever more aware of issues of body positivity (they’re trying, you guys), it’s just an odd, odd thing for some titles to be turning their cover stars into different human beings. Again, these shots are not slimming, not beautifying. Just altered. It’s like they can’t help themselves. Weird, right?
Luckily, Vogue—with the help of photographer Annie Leibovitz—does a very good job of making Adele look like Adele in the editorial that comes along with the cover. Indeed, this has got to be the most sumptuous, beautiful shoot Adele has ever done. More than that, the interview that comes along with the gorgeous shots seems to be winner.
In the end, we love what Vogue has produced here. But that cover … that cover.
