ELEMENTS OF STYLE
I Was Afraid They’d All Be California Girls
I’ve always been amazed that there has never been a fashion magazine for the teenage trade, something which could exploit what passes for haute couture in the junior high school set. I don’t mean Rolling Stone’s incomprehensible Tom Wolfe piece on denim chic — the readers of Rolling Stone need to be told about that? — but a pop Vogue, which can let the suburban demimonde know when snakeskin boots are outre and bare midriffs merely de rigeur, when too much mascara is in and when the natural look has rim its course.
In Los Angeles, where rivalary for the sleaziest style is most earnest, there was once (in 1972 and 1973) a splendidly vainglorious attempt at such a publication. It was called Star magazine and it nearly realized the ambition of every former boutique owner with a .literary bent, and pushed, in the process, the truth of teen licentiousness a little further into the open.
