You know Cheryl Strayed is a hot commodity when Vogue comes calling. Trouble is, Vogue can’t leave well enough alone (read: Photoshop). Come on Vogue.
The fab Cheryl Strayed (aka Dear Sugar) just published Wild, a memoir of her three-month, 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995.
Says Random House, at age 22, Strayed “thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed.
Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike … from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State … alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was … ‘an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.’ But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.”
Vogue got on the Sugar train and interviewed her in a recent issue. This by far is my favorite of the interview questions:
And what about your day-to-day fashion and beauty ritual?
God bless her, Strayed didn’t punch the interviewer or storm out. No, she answered the question as graciously as possible.
“I wore the same thing every day: shorts, a sports bra, a T-shirt, socks, and boots,” she said. “On cold days I had fleece leggings, a long-sleeved top, and a fleece anorak. I had two pair of socks. Every few weeks I might get a shower somewhere if I was lucky, and then I’d get a chance to wash my clothes.
When I first set out I brought deodorant, and was laughed off the trail!”
And then there’s the photo of Cheryl Strayed. Vogue took a pic of Strayed “hiking” to accompany the article. Hair done. Clean jeans. Nifty L.L. Bean jacket. And they photoshopped the hell out of her.
Come on, Vogue.
2 Responses
The real question is why would Vogue be interested in that story to begin with.
No kidding. I think it’s cause everyone and their brother is talking up Strayed’s memoir. The interviewer + photog + publisher must have been pulling out their respective heads of hair over how to shape the story/photo into something they considered Vogue-worthy.