See the grainy snapshot of the December cover of Vogue Spain above? No, that’s not a leak from our forums (though it was discovered by one of our eagle-eyed forum members). The photo originated on Vogue Spain’s own Instagram a couple hours ago, at the time of writing. Whether the unfinished quality of the image was intentional or accidental, it’s not totally clear to me why more and more publications are “leaking” their own covers, with crudely shot photos over social media.
Earlier this week, Eva Chen previewed Lucky Magazine‘s most recent (and highly controversial) cover with Kerry Washington by posting an almost deliberately slipshod twitpic. We’ve seen Chen’s selfies and she’s definitely a technically proficient iPhone photographer — so what gives? Has someone done market testing to determine that sending bad photographs over-the-transom makes your brand seem more authentic?
Of course, maybe we’re reading too much into a few bad pictures. But looking at the Instagram above, which shows Joan Smalls photographed by Karl Lagerfeld, it’s not clear how Vogue Spain benefits from teasing such a blurry crop.
