Fictivity in Vogue: a cognitive-functional categorization of fictive speech acts in a fashion corpus using corpus linguistics

: Fashion pervades different instances of culture, ranging from clothes to language and behavior. In this paper, we analyze the occurrence of three fictive speech categories (PASCUAL, 2014) as storytelling strategies in sections of North American Vogue magazine. This paper aims at investigating through a mixed-method approach cognitive-functional categories of fictive speech acts based on a corpus analysis of a corpus with fashion texts. We collected 200 texts from Vogue magazine (printed edition) from 2015 to 2018. In a sample of 60 texts, sentential (SENT), intra-sentential (INTRA) and inter-sentential (INTER) fictive acts were manually identified and categorized in each text through tags. The quantitative analysis mapped the counts of each category per year and per text and the qualitative in-depth analysis investigates instances from each category and their interpretation in the light of Fashion and cognitive and corpus linguistics theories. The findings show that the occurrence of the categories of fictive speech acts varies per year with opposing trends, though they tend to co-occur in the same texts. Therefore, fictive speech acts function as recurrent discursive strategies to foster a conversational environment in texts from Vogue magazine.


Introduction
Fashion has grown over the years, being represented in several fields, such as marketing, art, media, literature, business. Beyond being an industry, it has shaped modern collective life, cultures and societies.
The fashion industry includes everything from the so-called haute couture (high fashion), to the pret-a-porter (ready to wear), to everyday wear 6 . However, fashion is not restricted to clothing; on the contrary, fashion includes the development of ways to dress, behave, act, in short, a way of living that follows certain trends established in this complex network of ideas and concepts. In sum, fashion is linked to the feelings, languages and symbols through which we express ourselves.
Despite the broad spectrum encompassed by fashion culture, and hence reflected in language, a choice was made to study the language of one of its most iconic symbols, Vogue magazine. In particular, the present paper sets out to analyze sections of the Vogue magazine from a Cognitive perspective, aiming at identifying the most recurrent fictive speech categories, i.e. sentential, intra-sentential, and inter-sentential (PASCUAL, 2014), employed in the chosen texts. In addition, it is intended to verify the use, in context, of certain fictive speech strategies as central pillars to the anecdotal nature of the texts published in Vogue.
The texts used in this study were manually collected from American Vogue magazine and were randomly selected and categorized based on methodological principles of Corpus Linguistics, which aims at the empirical study of language use in authentic texts with the aid of computer programs and incorporation of quantitative analysis and qualitative interpretations (BIBER et al., 2000;CONRAD, 2011).
In the following sections of this paper, we discuss the Corpus Linguistics and importance of carrying out this analysis in a corpus of fashion texts. A brief overview of fictive speech is provided, with special focus on the three categories (PASCUAL, 2014) encompassed by fictive speech. Then, we describe the methodological procedures as well as the categories taken into account for analysis and, lastly, we address the quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Fictive speech in Vogue fashion corpus: bridging the gap between Corpus Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics
Despite its empirical nature, studies in cognitive linguistics have been traditionally qualitative. However, recent years have seen a shift towards the incorporation of quantitative analysis, as evidenced by the growing number of corpus-based cognitive studies (GRIES, STEFANOWITSCH, 2007). The present study adds to the body of research as it incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods used in cognitive and corpus linguistics to investigate the presence of fictivity in a corpus of fashion texts in Vogue magazine. The following subsections introduce the concepts of cognitive and corpus linguistics relevant to this study, that is fictive speech acts and empirical investigation of language use, respectively.
In addition, it contextualizes language use in the fashion industry.

Fictive speech
There has been considerable discussion on the issue of fictivity in Cognitive Linguistics literature. Leonard Talmy (2000), for instance, pointed out the existence of discrepancies in representations of an object, with a more veridical representation, called factive, and another divergent, "less veridical", fictive representation (TALMY, 2000, p. 100).
Such concepts encompassing the broader term named general fictivity by Talmy (2000) might not be directly correlated with objects being real or unreal. Indeed, they may have to do with "a cognitive assessment of greater veridicality" (TALMY, 2000, p. 100 Talmy (2000), Matsumoto (1996), Sweetser (1996), Langacker (1999, and Pascual (2014) have considerably addressed fictivity, providing the literature with valuable insight. However, plenty of room has been left for exploration of different perspectives of such topics.
Unlike Talmy (2000), who addressed fictive motion, Ronald Langacker addressed fictivity in interaction, pointing out fictive speech acts, bridging the gap between the so-called real, factive world and a metaphorical, fictive one (LANGACKER, 1999). The author also discusses a dichotomy between actual and fictive entities. If, on the one hand, actual individuals and their relationships would have to do with reality and the real world, on the other hand, fictive or virtual entities and relationships may be imagined, not corresponding to reality or to a real entity, despite being a resource for describing "a facet of reality" (LANGACKER, 1999, p. 81). Thus, Langacker (1999) proposes a distinction between actual and fictive entities.
Although there seems to be a "default assumption that linguistic expressions normally refer directly to actual individuals and actual relationships in which they participate" (LANGACKER, 1999, p. 77), the way we think, act and express in linguistic terms may be metaphorical in nature. Even when we are mainly concerned about the so-called "real" or actual events, we may surprisingly be referring to virtual ones (LANGACKER, 1999).
Metonymy and implicature are examples of concepts that play an important role when we bridge the gap between "linguistic expressions and the actual relationships they pertain to" (LANGACKER, 1999, p. 78).
From this viewpoint, human experience, since childhood, is considered to be able to exert influence on the way our minds and language are organized, once we are "social beings constantly exposed to and engaged in meaningful verbal interactions" (PASCUAL, 2014, p. 4). Cognitive linguists have been known for their endeavor to bridge the gap between language and thought. As Lakoff and Johnson (1999) point out, thought walks hand in hand with language, as the latter might be a way of simplifying complex ideas. The scholars explain that "[s]econd-generation cognitive science is committed to looking at language from the broadest perspective. It includes (...) the meanings, the pragmatics, the speech-act constructions, constraints on processing, and on and on" (LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1999JOHNSON, , p. 1110 Over the past 40 years, speech acts have been in the scope of a number of pragmatic studies, which have highlighted their importance to identity construction (OLIVEIRA, CUNHA, MIRANDA, 2017). However, the issue of fictive speech acts in particular has not been an object of study of pragmatic scholars. Rather, it has been the object of study of cognitive linguists, namely Langacker (1999), who have addressed cognitive processes such as mappings and conceptual metaphors underlying speech and communication. A number of works in the literature have bridged this gap between cognition and speech acts by means of fictive speech acts. Echoing the idea of fictivity first proposed by Talmy (cf. TALMY, 2000), Langacker (1999) addressed the concept of fictive speech acts. Such path has been followed by a number of other scholars, such as Brandt (2013Brandt ( , 2016, who addressed fictive verbal interactionfirst proposed by Pascual (2002) in construction of meaning online and later discussed rhetorical aspects of fictive interaction in advertising; Pascual (2014), who proposed an analysis of fictive speech in trials; and Canovas and Turner (2016), who addressed fictive communication from a theoretical perspective unlike the previous works, which also held an empirical basis.
Echoing Grice (1989), Sweetser (1987), and Bakhtin (1981), Pascual (2014) considers the way we tend to regard language as informational, that is, what one claims may be what they truly believe. Such understanding of language seems to walk hand in hand with Michael Foucault's discussion on the word "parrhesia" -i.e. "to say everything" (FOUCAULT, 1983).
As the scholar claims, "the one who uses parrhesia, the parrhesiastes, is someone who says everything he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through discourse" (FOUCAULT, 1983, p. 2). Thus, under the light of such an assumption, one may note a strong relationship between the speaker and his assumptions. Indeed, as claimed by Foucault (1983), the speaker clearly demonstrates the correspondence between what they say and their actual opinions. However, when it comes to different ways of expressing opinions, one may find other rhetorical strategies that may not hold such a clear relationship between what is literally said and the opinion underlying it.
With regard to the concept of fictive speech acts proposed by Langacker (1999), fictivity is "at the level of illocutionary force" (LANGACKER, 1999, p. 90). The scholar claims that "in a fictive speech act, the speaker in some sense pretends to employ the interactive frame but does not fully identify its elements with those of the actual interaction" (LANGACKER, 1999, p. 90). Irony may be one recurrent fictive strategy pervading fictive speech acts, as illustrated in the following examples: • That was a brilliant move. [in response to something obviously stupid] • He will finish his dissertation on time. And I will be elected pope. (LANGACKER, 1999, p. 90). In both cases, the speaker pretends to make an ordinary assertion, as pointed out by Langacker (1999). In the second example, an advisor clearly employs irony in the utterance "and I will be elected pope", since he will not literally be elected pope once his student finishes his dissertation on time. By contrast, in the first example, the locutor seems to perform a speech act in which he praises someone or a situation, when he utters "that was a brilliant move". However, it may convey criticism, as stated in the context that irony is used as a response to an obviously stupid situation. When he states ideas that mean the opposite of what is actually true, he points out that it is not his intention to lead the interlocutor to assume the proposition as true (LANGACKER, 1999). Therefore, both examples illustrate the context-driven nature of fictive speech acts, where a speech act is employed with a function that is different from its literal one.
Fictive interaction might occur at three levels: sentential, inter-sentential and intrasentential (PASCUAL, 2014). Sentential fictivity is identified at the level of the sentence, when a clause, for instance, is used to express an idea that differs from its recurrent meaning.
Ironical clauses, such as And I will be elected pope, in the example above, and rhetorical questions, "interrogative constructions used as exclamatives" as in You here?, (PASCUAL, 2014, p. 66) are examples of sentential fictive interaction.
In turn, inter-sentential fictive interaction encompasses the relationship between sentences and clauses in a fictive conversation frame. For example, in an inter-sentential fictive interaction, the locutor might also take the role of the interlocutor. In a fictive dialog, a speaker might use a discourse organizing device by uttering Why?, as if he were the hearer, and, then, answering Because... (PASCUAL, 2014).
In intra-sentential interaction, one may deal with "a direct speech constituent typically not involving a literal or loose quotation. (...) This non-quotational direct speech constituent appears to fill the grammatical slots of clauses, phrases, lexical items, and even morphemes" (PASCUAL, 2014, p. 77). Unlike the other types of fictive interaction, intra-sentential fictivity is related to non-literal direct speech used to perform a syntactic function in, namely, clauses or phrases, as shown in the following example: • He's a businessman, a guy that you say, You're making so much money and here's some points (PASCUAL, 2014, p. 78).
Although You're making so much money and here's some points could be interpreted as a real sentence uttered by a speaker to an addressee, it stands as a clause used to describe a fictive addressee.
The next subsection will briefly introduce the concept of fashion and how it is expressed through discourse.

Fashion discourse
According to Lars Svendsen (2010), "fashion" is difficult to define and it tends to be related to clothing. However, fashion is not restricted to clothing, as it has been proven to be related to a wider range of topics than just clothing, as claimed by Calanca (2008). The author states that the artist's creativity is expressed through the use of multiple languages of contemporary communication, such as photography, advertising, design, theater, lyrics, cinema, radio, television, and specialized magazines (CALANCA, 2008 Magazines are ways of advertising products and ideas and bringing people up to date on what is happening in society through news, stories, facts, thoughts, interviews. Vogue magazine is one of the most famous fashion magazines and it has been ranked 7 as one of the most read fashion magazines. As such, it can be said it has influenced the way facts, concepts and ideas about fashion are presented. Therefore, the choice was made to analyze sections of the Vogue magazine for this research. Thompson and Haytko state that "[f]ashion discourses provide consumers with a plurality of interpretive positions that, because of their diverse associations, can enable them to juxtapose opposing values and beliefs" (1997, p. 15). The results of their study, conducted through interviews, showed that discourse in those interviews was pervaded by metonymic constructions with the use of fashion imagery. Moreover, they were interpreted as situating individuals in particular social spheres, not only as symbols of personal identity. Similar to Lakoff (1987), Thompson and Haytko, affirm, from a cognitive perspective, that [...] this type of linguistic trope reflects an important characteristic of human cognition" (1997, p. 23). Furthermore, they add that "[t]hrough metonymic thinking, a complex and abstract concept can be understood in terms of one of its more well known or easily comprehended aspects" (THOMPSON, HAYKO, 1997, p. 23).
The language used in fashion discourses in its myriad forms can be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively through the study of corpora of spoken and written texts associated with this industry and drawing on the principles of Corpus Linguistics, which are briefly presented in the next subsection.

Corpus Linguistics
A wide range of situations influence the way language is used, including the language system and its functions (i.e., choices available to and choices made by language users), situational context, and communicative purpose, configuring its inherent variation, which could be termed a central aspect of language in use (FIRTH, 1957;SINCLAIR, 1991;BIBER, 1988;BIBER et al., 1999). Corpus Linguistics studies are based on empirical investigations of language use through the use of a corpus, that is, a "principled collection of naturally occurring texts (written or spoken) stored electronically" (REPPEN, 2010, p.2). This allows for language description and theory focused on "systemic observations of language behavior, not on native speaker intuition" in both general and specific situational and communicative contexts of language use (BIBER et al., 2000;CONRAD, 2011, p. 49). In addition to studies of language description and theory, corpus data can also be used to inform functional cognitive approaches to lexical semantics and metaphor in conceptual terms, as shown in McEnery and Hardie (2011). According to the authors, the importance of findings from the study of corpora, using either quantitative or qualitative analysis or both, depends on the corpus data selected and the research questions being made (McENERY, HARDIE, 2011).
This study makes use of a small corpus of texts taken from seven sections of the printed edition of Vogue magazine, ranging from 2015 to 2018. In this instance, a small corpus "is seen as a body of relevant and reliable evidence, and is either small enough to be analysed manually, or is processed by the computer in a preliminary fashion" (GHADESSY et al., 2001, p. 6). According to the authors, [b]y calling a group of texts or text samples a corpus we are investing it with linguistic status. The corpus is gathered on the basis of external criteria (Clear 1992), to do with the sociocultural roles of the texts it contains, and the claim is implicitly made that an investigation into the internal patterns of the language used will be fruitful and linguistically illuminating. So if it is a general corpus, researchers expect to find in it information about the language as a whole, and if it is a more specialised corpus, then the characteristics of the genre will be discoverable (GHADESSY et al., 2001, p. 6).
The corpus used in this study is a specialized subset of a corpus of fashion texts, entitled Fashion Corpus, being compiled as part of a doctoral research, as further described in the methodology section. This corpus subset is thought to represent an adequate sample in which to identify the most recurrent fictive speech categories present in texts from Vogue magazine, considered a leader in the fashion world, dictating trends and establishing ideas and concepts related to its industry.
The methodological aspects of this study are presented in the next section.

Methodology
The corpus used in this study is a specialized subset of a corpus of fashion texts, written and spoken, entitled Fashion Corpus, being compiled as part of a doctoral research.
The full corpus comprises, to date, 651 texts taken from fashion magazines, blogs, films, tv series, tutorials, Twitter, institutional Facebook, Instagram, documentaries, and academic texts. After manual collection, the 200 texts were scanned as pdf files and then converted 8 to text format and saved as .txt files (UTF-8 BOM encoding). Next, texts were manually revised to remove any typographical mistakes from the conversion that could negatively influence the analysis.
Each file was named based on the following coding: "magz" (standing for magazine) + year + "vogp" (standing for Vogue Printed) + text number. An example is magz_2016_vogp_0018, which is text 18, collected from the Vogue magazine printed edition published in 2016. Also, each text had headers between brackets containing the file name, the source and the text section. These texts were organized in a spreadsheet that stored additional information on the texts, namely the register, year, source, source code and file code (filename). After these procedures, 200 texts were classified, as shown in Table 1 Due to an unbalance in text availability per year, it was necessary to sample texts to reduce bias and have a balanced corpus. For this reason, as presented in Table 2, 15 texts from each year were randomly sampled using Python scripts 9 , resulting in a corpus of 60 texts. After the sampling process, a manual preliminary analysis for identification of fictive speech items in the texts was carried out. The fictive elements identified in each file were classified and tagged as follows: sentential (SENT), intra-sentential (INTRA) and intersentential (INTER). These categories stand for the three levels of fictive speech acts: sentential, intra-sentential, and inter-sentential identified by Pascual (2014). Figure 1 shows an example of a tagged text, in which the tags are highlighted in red.  The tags follow the format <segment><TAG>, like in the example "<D is for Dragon><INTRA>". This format was chosen in order to allow for the automatic tracking and counting of these segments and categories with the aid of Python scripts.
The selected text files were stored in folders per year (named "2015'', "2016" and "2017", "2018") and processed in python scripts that performed the following tasks: The results were analyzed in the light of the cognitive-functional theory of fictive speech acts from a mixed perspective, including both qualitative and quantitative results. For this reason, the counts were sorted per text and per year, taking into account each category separately.

Quantitative analysis of the data obtained
The raw counts and normalized percentage of the manually tagged fictive speech categories identified in the texts (inter-sentential, sentential, and intra-sentential), obtained through Python scripts, are shown in Table 3. As the percentages in bold represented in Table 3 show, the inter-sentential category  Indeed, one may note that sentential fictive speech stood out in the texts published in 2015 and 2016, whereas intra-sentential fictive speech was recurrent in 2017. In 2018, both inter-sentential and sentential fictive speech occurrences seemed to pervade the texts analyzed. Based on these results, it was possible to verify that these categories coexist in texts from all years, despite the low amount of texts analyzed. Therefore, it is necessary to take into consideration a qualitative analysis of the fictive categories.

Qualitative analysis of the fictive speech items through fictive categories
In the samples gathered from Vogue magazine from 2015 to 2018, the occurrence of the three levels of fictive speech acts, sentential, intra-sentential, and inter-sentential (PASCUAL, 2014), was identified. When it comes to sentential fictive speech acts, they might be performed by means of a number of linguistic items, namely rhetorical questions, fictive assertions, and fictive requests. The following excerpts illustrate the use of sentential fictive strategies in the samples analyzed: (1) Call it what you will-frescobol in Rio de Janeiro, matkot in Tel Aviv, racchettoni on the Amalfi Coast-but the laid-back 1970s-favorite beach game that calls for wooden paddles, a springy ball, and toes-in-sand athleticism is having a renaissance. (MAGZ.VOGP.JULY.2015.0113) (2) And there it was, on Salem End Road: a white clapboard ruin, proof of one daughter-ofhistory's unlikely survival. Do you write your own story, or do you allow others to write it for you? This, finally, was Sarah's legacy, one that took on unexpected resonance as Thorsten and I struggled to plot our next steps. (MAGZ.VOGP.NOVEMBER.2015.0011) (3) "You always extended situations beyond where I would take them," she said, "but they were usually such good ideas that I ended up thinking, Well, why not?" We turned a corner onto the street where we used to live. (MAGZ.VOGP. AUGUST.2016.0172) In (1), the assertion Call it what you will does not have to do with an order given to the interlocutorthe reader. Indeed, such assertion stands as a discursive strategy used to convey a strong assertion, emphasizing that, regardless of the name given to that beach game, i.e.
frescobol, matkot or racchettoni, it is having a renaissance.
In the same vein, the question posed in (2) does not seem to genuinely enquire the reader upon a given issue. Considering the anecdotal nature of the letter from the editor section in Vogue Magazine, the question might either be a rhetorical question intended to call the reader's attention to the story or even a fictive question echoing one's thoughts on the story being told. In either case, the fictive question at stake appears to have a non-factual nature, as it appears not to fulfill the purpose of information-seeking (PASCUAL, 2014).
Although there may be another fictive speech occurrence (i.e., "And there it was"), it is not a fictive speech act involving metaphorical direct interaction between the writer and the reader as shown in the bold excerpt.
In turn, (3) encompasses a rhetorical use of Why not? that might not have to do with a real, factive questioning of the reasons why the locutor would not take a certain action.
Rather, it is uttered by the interviewee to highlight her interest in considering the interesting ideas proposed to her.
With regard to fictive speech at the intra-sentential level, excerpts (4) and (5)  Of equal merit is tough-yet-tender in (5). The potential utterance that a fictive speaker might utter, qualifying the class as tough, yet tender, is transformed into a pre-modifier of the head noun class in a noun phrase. In both examples, the intra-sentential fictive occurrences correspond to "a self-sufficient discourse unit conceptualized within a non-factive communicative occurrence, which functions syntactically and semantically as a grammatical constituent" (PASCUAL, 2014, p. 81).
In the samples analyzed, inter-sentential fictivity seems to occur when the author or an interviewee creates a fictive dialogueand the interaction may vary in a number of ways, as follows: fictive dialogue between the narrator and what was said by an interviewee or quoted author, fictive conversation between the narrator and the reader, or even fictive interaction between the narrator and other unknown fictive interlocutors. Excerpt (6) illustrates a fictive interaction between the narrator and a fictive interlocutorbeing either the reader or unknown: (6) "You're a grievous liar!" she shouted at one accuser. And here's where my Catholic mother would add that Sarah was innocent. No, Sarah wasn't cavorting with Satan on the parsonage lawn. What my mother really means, I suspect, is that Sarah was a good girl.
I'm not so sure. She'd been around the block a few times. (MAGZ.VOGP.NOVEMBER.2015.0011) Interestingly, the excerpt above encompasses two instances of fictive speech. In the first one, by means of No, Sarah wasn't cavorting with Satan on the parsonage lawn the narrator adds a potential reply from his mother to the accuser. In turn, the second one has to do with the narrator's fictive participation in such dialog, when he reacts to his mother's claim, saying I'm not so sure. In fact, he does not seem to be factively interacting with his mother; rather, he might fictively interact with the reader, expressing his opinion on the idea conveyed by his mother.

Final Remarks
This pilot study provided an analysis of the occurrence of fictive speech elements, i.e. sentential, intra-sentential, and inter-sentential fictivity, in different sections of the North American Vogue magazine, printed edition. The fictive speech categories taken into account draw on the cognitive linguistics theoretical framework provided by Pascual (2014) and Langacker (1999). The methodological procedures adopted for sampling alongside the The quantitative results as well as the qualitative analysis of the sample show that different fictive strategies might co-occur even in the same text. Although the quantitative analysis led to the systematization of the fictive categories, it did not seem to be sufficient for a thorough analysis of fictive speech, as it may be context-sensitive. Therefore, a qualitative analysis was performed. The quantitative results showed a larger presence of sentential fictives and fewer intra-sentential fictives in texts from 2015 and 2016, a trend that was reversed in texts from 2017 and 2018. Nonetheless, from the qualitative analysis, it appears that all three categories of fictive speech acts are functioning to create an involved, conversational discourse, approximating it to a dialogue with the reader. This seems to reflect the situational characteristics and communicative purposes of texts from the different sections of Vogue magazine, which is mostly to interact with the reader and bring forth opinions, ideas and concepts from the editor and contributors of the magazine. Rhetorical questions and fictive requests in sentential fictive speech acts appear to be used to call the readers' attention to assertions being made and to emphasize interest on topics or ideas being discussed. At the intra-sentential level, fictive speech acts appear to function mostly as noun pre-modifiers, a grammatical feature prevalent in informational, written discourse (BIBER, 1988;BIBER et al., 1999). The occurrence of inter-sentential fictive speech acts remained relatively stable in the four years covered in the corpus. As aforementioned, inter-sentential fictivity creates a dialogue between the narrator, in this case the writer of the Vogue magazine section, and the reader in order to express opinions and ideas. Thus, it appears inter-sentential fictive speech acts may be a major contributor to the conversational and interactional nature of the language in texts in this corpus of Vogue magazine sections.
One limitation of this study was the small number of texts in the corpus. The reason for using a smaller corpus are two-fold, one being this pilot study required manual identification and tagging of fictive speech acts, and second because this is a first step in creating and testing a script to identify and automatically retrieve different categories of fictive speech acts. It is expected that the results of this study will lead to future work on Recebido em: 19 de novembro de 2020.

Letter from the Editor
In this section, Vogue Magazine's Chief Editor Anna Wintour writes about her own personal opinion in a plethora of subjects, which usually relate in some manner to current world events, such as the marches for women empowerment, gender identity, development of friendship and bonds between women, and all the way to the revolutionary Hamilton Musical. Touching on such subjects inevitably assists the readers in seeing Vogue Magazine as a relevant source of information. This is the Chief Editor's moment of self-expression, and thus gives the reader a glimpse into her mind and what she thinks it's relevant for that month's magazine.

Beauty
The Beauty section of the magazine touches more on the ethereal idea of beauty than the physical. As it does not talk about the physical aspect of makeup and how to apply it, as much as it touches on the importance of such things. This section tells you stories of brands, artists, and products with the apparent intention of making your life more "beautiful." It brings tips and examples of how to improve life in meaningful ways through various subsections or branches, from wellness and health to makeup and fragrances. At times, even suggesting the benefits of a life away from the city.

Talking Fashion / Fashion
Talking Fashion is a very broad category which encompasses everything from the "It Girl" to a "World Class." The section's purpose appears to be a place in which people can express their own voices and opinions. The "It Girl" is a space where an "it girl" at the moment can share more about herself and her life, and, on the other side of the spectrum, "World Class" is where people can learn more about community and society, for example, a project that teaches children from Congo how to read and write. This space is about voice, and each person has their own.

The Hamish Files
The Hamish Files are where Hamish Bowlesthe writertells the audience about his escapades around the world in the pursuit of the latest tours, plays, and exhibitions of the fashion world. From Paris, to New York and Los Angeles, Bowles attempts to bring more of culture and knowledge in the course of his travels. The writing is almost as his own private journal, allowing the readers to feel welcome, and close to him and to the topics he writes about.

VLife
VLife provides information on fashion, culture, and beauty in varied forms, from Top 5 lists to deep and meaningful interviews. It is a section that addresses fashion as more than the physical, culture as more than a concept, and beauty as more than something unattainable.

Nostalgia
As the name suggests, this section brings high tales and stories of celebrities. It is a window to a time past, transporting readers to events, thoughts and actions from previous years or even decades.

View
This section presents itself as more journalistic in nature. In a magazine seen as mostly full of opinions, this section is more straightforward than expected. Even though it still brings opinions and points of view of well-known and prominent figures, it focuses on fact reporting.
It is usually a fast-paced read, that one will find oneself more curious and intrigued about what is being presented.