Blame Annie Leibovitz. The photographer-to-the-stars shot Moore in lace undies, spike heels and a slinky peignoir before going for the all-in-all. The photos were then put before VF Editor in Chief Tina Brown, for whom controversy has become as common as a cover on The Real Madonna. “I was immediately drawn to it,” says Brown. “To me, it’s as beautiful as any of the great Madonnas or a Picasso.” VF staffers were all for it, though one editor calls it “our eloquent naked preggo issue.”
And what do readers think? There are two schools of thought, Demi-wise: pro-preggo and anti-preggo. Most VF readers–the lion’s share of whom are subscribers–fashion themselves as worldly sorts (consider: they loved seminude wrestling shots of Roseanne Arnold). The problem, Brown says, is the “hysterical women at K mart” who don’t see the spread’s “true feminism.” After informing vendors of the impending bombshell, VF was compelled to cover the issue in white paper in most of the nation. Now staffers fear it looks like a naughty-nurses magazine.
But if the folks at 7-Eleven and Piggly Wiggly have to take some flak from outraged customers, they can take comfort from ringing registers. So far, sales of the issue are brisk nationwide, with sellouts reported in Manhattan, one of the few spots where the mag remains shall we say, naked.
