Pungent Details: All It Needs Is an Atomizer

By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The"Holiday" issue of Details magazine stinks.

I mean that quite literally. It reeks. It is pungent with odor. This is because the magazine is stuffed with ads for cologne or perfume or parfum or whatever you call the stuff desperate guys swab on their bodies in the hopes of getting lucky.

The special issue contains nothing about any holidays, but it does contain ads for Versace Man and Calvin Klein Man and Tom Ford for Men and Prada Amber Pour Homme and Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue Pour Homme and Burberry Touch for Men and Jean Paul Gaultier le Male, among other fragrances. All these ads are drenched with the product they advertise and the scents mix and mingle and rise from the magazine in a vapor that envelops the reader and whoever happens to be sitting next to the reader on the Metro. The cumulative effect is akin to drowning in a huge vat of Ty-D-Bol.

It's not fair to judge a magazine by its ads, but if truth be told the articles in Details also reek of perfume, literally and figuratively.

Founded in 1981, Details is a magazine aimed at 20-something men, and if its editorial content truly reflects the interests and concerns of America's young males, then we are in deep, deep trouble. A few years ago, Details ran articles titled "The Agony of the Adult Pimple" and "The Nightmare of the Office Bowel Movement." This year, it has run pieces called "You're Not Shaving Properly" and "Are You Wearing Mom Jeans?"

This non-holiday Holiday issue contains "articles" on how to tie a bow tie and "how to dress for the weekend" and "how to wear a sweater vest without looking like you've morphed into a middle-schooler." There's a whole section on stuff that's judged to be okay to wear, including velvet blazers, bow ties, gray-plaid tuxedos, black jeans and patent leather shoes. There's also a dire warning about how to avoid a horrible fashion mistake: "Put Your Collar Back Inside Your Jacket." Details is very serious about that. Wearing your shirt collar open and splayed out over the lapel of your sport jacket is not only "stunningly unsubtle" but it also "makes you look like a game show host."

How do the guys at Details know this stuff? They checked in with Vincent Boucher, who is identified as "an L.A. stylist who works with Kiefer Sutherland." Who would know better?

They also checked in with soccer star David Beckham and asked him the question that's on everyone's mind: "Do American men wear fragrance differently from British men?"

"I don't really know yet," Beckham replied. "I haven't been here long enough to smell enough men. You'll see paparazzi pictures of me smelling other men."

But Details isn't entirely filled with moronic fashion tips. There are also moronic articles. One of them, "A Guide to Modern Office Etiquette," informs us that it's just not right to misspell words in e-mails or to talk to co-workers while standing at a urinal. It also reports that you should never cry at the office.

Young men of America, do you really need to buy a magazine to learn that you shouldn't cry at the office?

The cover story in this issue is a profile of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a semi-quasi-pseudo-famous young actor who stares into Details' camera with a cigarette dangling from his plump lips and a sullen look in his eyes. The article begins with Meyers standing on a crowded Dublin street screaming a crude plea for carnal love. Then he sits in a sidewalk cafe burning the "fake hair" off the sleeves of his jacket with a cigarette lighter. The piece ends with a profound revelation: "There's a zit on his right cheek."

Who could ask for more?

There's also an article titled "Totally Blonde," which reveals an important new trend in American life -- the trend toward putting beautiful blond women on TV shows. "To turn on the tube these days," Details reveals, "is to be blinded by blondeness." This article makes no sense; when has TV ever eschewed the beautiful blonde? But it does provide Details with an excuse to run pictures of those already overexposed platinum blond bimbos who hang around with Hugh Hefner. Details shows them frolicking in tiny bikinis, sucking on popsicles and sprawling across the pavement of the parking lot of a store called, believe it or not, "Dong's Drugs." Clever, huh?

There are some real articles in Details -- a profile of a young Marine killed in Iraq and a piece on the ne'er-do-well American son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor -- but they seem out of place, as if they'd accidentally wandered in from another magazine, one that doesn't have quite so many cologne ads.

But I don't want to be totally negative. Details isn't all bad. It'll come in handy when you need some cologne for your next hot date. Just open to any page and rub it all over your body.

How Convenient

Back in October, I wrote a column on the weird trade magazines that people peruse while exercising at a local gym. After reading the column, Jeff Lenard, publisher of NACS, the official magazine of the Alexandria-based National Association of Convenience Stores, sent me a few back issues. The July issue contained a masterpiece -- the definitive history of the portrayal of convenience stores in American cinema.

The author, Michael Klein, provided a rich textual analysis of convenience store scenes in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" and "Thelma & Louise" and "Booty Call" and "Raising Arizona" and "Grosse Point Blank" and "Clerks" -- plus TV shows ranging from "Seinfeld" to "Mad About You" to that classic "Simpsons" episode in which Apu, the lovable owner of the Kwik-E-Mart, sells a 29-cent stamp for $1.85.

Such rigorous cinematic scholarship would be enough for a lesser magazine, like Cahiers du Cinema, but Klein doesn't stop there. In a sidebar story, he asks the writers and directors of these shows to reveal what they bought the last time they went to a convenience store.

"I walked up to the counter [with] a bottle of moderately priced chardonnay, a bottle of Scope mouthwash and a pack of condoms," says Bill Grundfest, a former "Mad About You" writer. "And the lady behind the counter just looked at me over her glasses and said, 'Well, somebody's got an interesting evening planned tonight.' "