Flashback Friday: Rob & Kristen and Four Years of Vanity Fair

With the release of Kristen’s Vanity Fair cover, this marked the fourth time in just under four years that Rob, Kristen or Rob/Kristen has been the focal point of a major photo spread in the mag, three of which were cover stories.  We thought it would be fun to do a little retrospective on all four shoots and how they measured up.

July 2012: Kristen Goes Couture

^ Just a “weirdo, creative Valley Girl (who smokes pot)”. Flawlessly.

A: I’m excited to get all the outtakes from this shoot, as what we’ve seen so far is just beautiful.  I was a bit apprehensive about these photos when we first started seeing the pap pics of it as it was happening, as Kristen is so tiny I thought the clothes might overwhelm her, but everything looks incredible. 

M: You know how I felt about this entire evolution at the onset and especially when we got the early pap pics in Paris (‘ambivalent’ is putting it diplomatically), but I have to say seeing it born out has been surprisingly satisfying. These photos are absolutely gorgeous and she inarguably has a face made for magazine covers.

^ Simply amazing. Living art.

^ Spectacular!

A:  And the interview, while not revelatory, was quite good—especially considering VF’s track record with Rob (but more on that later).  I appreciated that the writer didn’t go in there with an agenda and just let Kristen be Kristen.  I loved her comments about the “voracious, starving shit eaters.”  It’s like she took “nerdy little bloggers” and upped the ante.  She’s certainly not wrong, though.  The girl gets more shit than any ten people deserve.  Lovely words from Rupert Sanders, Jodie Foster and Sean Penn, as well.  They all think very highly of Kristen and appreciate her professionalism.  Then of course there was Rob defending his girl which was pure love.  I mean could he nail the one thing she’s been criticized for the most any more perfectly:

“People have decided how they are going to perceive her.  No matter how many times she smiles, they’ll put in the one picture where she’s not smiling.”

M: He really got straight to the heart of the matter which that is people have already made up their minds about her and four years after being thrust into the spotlight, nothing she does is going to sway them so she might as well continue to be her authentic self. Which not for nothing, like any other human being, is a million times more complex and layered than any public perception of her. And this interview is definitely, unabashedly Kristen.

I also love how he describes her as “insanely confident” because 1) he knows her better than anyone else and 2) she would have to be to deal with the shit that she does. I think there’s a sense of feeling protective of her amongst fans when in reality, she’s so much stronger than we can even fathom.

^ Rockin’ a bustier like she was born to do it.

^ With Uncle Karl.

M: First, that pic is really sweet because she’s loved Chanel for years and second, I love how as one who eschews her status as icon to be accessible as just another human, she searches for and finds the humanity in other icons too. Every time she speaks about someone “famous” she’s gotten to know, she references their warmth and humor, not their reputation.

Similarly, I appreciate journalists who take the time and interest to find the person in Kristen and not tap out yet another profile that could just be shorthanded as ‘Twilight made her really fucking famous, y’all’ which Ingrid Sischy did. You’re right, after the questionable analyses of Rob in the past, this VF piece was met with a sigh of relief.

April 2011: Rob On The Bayou

^ Why, Beek, why???

A:  I don’t even know what to say about this shoot.  I do not get how someone has a man in front of them who takes beautiful photos and then says “hey, I know! Let’s do an homage to…Crocodile Dundee?”  What the ever-lovin’ fuck, Leibovitz?

M: I mean… Yeah, I don’t know. It’s pretty bad. Especially because it was shot by Annie.

A:  To be fair, they’re not all awful.  This is amazing:

and this:

but then there’s this:

and I want to gouge my eyes out with a shrimp fork.  Did I miss the memo where Amish was the new black?

But if I thought the photos were far from great, I have even less nice things to say about the interview.  Nancy Jo Sales?  I’m still judging you.  I don’t think she could’ve made him seem more emo.  I mean, he *did* sound emo here (I actually think he didn’t want to do this cover story and was convinced last minute, hence its ‘thrown together’ vibe), but she jumped on that and made him seem like he was five minutes away from rocking in a corner and mumbling to himself.

M: Yeah. We covered this pretty well when it came out too. Whatever imaginary detente we reached with her over the course of reading the article, evaporated when she showed up on E! News promoting her Rob ~expose and crowing about “traumatic” non denial denials (SO 2009. And btw, I would imagine the word “traumatic” was describing the fact that people claiming to be his fans want to hurt his girlfriend because yes, that qualifies as traumatic not the relationship itself which was going strong when this interview was conducted and is better than ever today.)

There was at least some satisfaction when Rob voiced his displeasure with the piece to Josh Horowitz a few weeks later.

A: My only lasting takeaway from this interview was Rob likes pretzel M&Ms.  Otherwise it was like Ms. Sales took a couple quotes from him and wrapped a preconceived idea for a story around it. 

December 2009: When Gorgeous Doesn’t Begin To Cover It

^ UNFFFFFFF

A: This photoshoot is everything that is right in the world.  The lesson here is when you’ve got a Pattinson posing for you, just take the damn pictures and don’t gimmick it up.

M: Kudos to Bruce Weber because after GQ in 2008, this probably remains my favorite Rob photoshoot thus far. He’s just really, really ridiculously good looking.

^ Captivating

^ Who cares if it makes no sense for a piano to be in the middle of a field.  Musician Rob is hot.

^ Double the viewing pleasure.

A: Again, though: emo interview.  Not as bad as old Nancy Jo’s take on him, but you could tell he was kind of burnt out at the time.  To be fair, the interview was done right around Comic Con when he was filming Remember Me and he seemed exhausted—and more than ready to let Taylor take the lead in New Moon.

M: I remember as pissed as I was about the portrayal of Rob in this interview, I was actually more incensed by their references to Kristen including using an old quote of hers out of context and insinuating that she was genuinely flirting with Taylor at Comic Con. (So apparently the interview was done by a blind person.) I also remember not giving a fuck about any of the VF article because Harper’s Bazaar leaked a few days after and that said it ALL. And that’s pretty much how I still feel today. But pretty pics, man. Super pretty pics.

A: Yeah, the interview barely resonates with me.  It was just that forgettable.  I would’ve rather they just gave me a pictorial to drool over admire given the blandness of the piece.

^ A: This book is really in the hobo library, y/fy? M: I mean he and his girlfriend would know.

^ Blinded by the beauty of this picture.

December 2008: The Promised Land

Almost four years ago, Rob, Kristen and the rest of the cast got together in Thousand Oaks, California to shoot a spread for Vanity Fair to promote Twilight. It’s funny to think of a time where magazines weren’t *begging* for this kind of opportunity but no one really knew just how big the Saga would be back in the summer of 2008. One thing, though, became abundantly clear once the photos from this shoot started to emerge, that being that Rob and Kristen were not just otherworldly gorgeous, but that they had the kind of chemistry that few on-screen couples have. That that on-screen pairing led to an off-screen one shouldn’t be a surprise if pictures really do tell a story. Seeing *is* believing.

^ Perfectly-placed jaw kiss… 

This picture wasn’t released until a year after the shoot.  Probably for the best, as we had already spontaneously combusted over the original batch, so this gave us some time to calm down…only to spaz all over again. It’s really just the loveliest picture. He’s kissing her so delicately, she has her hand in his hair. While likely not improvised it’s most definitely intimate.

^ The playfulness of this picture is so very, very Rob and Kristen.  And, in hindsight, maybe the first “he’s mine, bitches” pic.

A: I mean, what can we can say about this shoot that we haven’t already said about a million times? It’s simply the best.  It’s almost easy to forget anyone else was even included, because the focus was quite obviously—and deservedly— on Rob and Kristen. 

M: This shoot is my happy place. Even though they’re obviously in a different place now, these pictures are still just as sweet, sexy, and romantic today as they were then.

^ Dorks. Hottest dorks ever.

^ Some day, we will get this pose.

A:  It’s funny that this is the most iconic photoshoot to date and yet it wasn’t even a cover.  I feel like VF still kicks themselves for that.

M: How could they not? No one knew though that these humble kids were minutes away from taking over the world.

A:  I could just look at these all day, every day and never tire—not just for the pics of the two of them together, either.

^ Gorgeous girl is gorgeous. To this day, she has yet to be styled more perfectly than she was here.

^ No shoot is complete without a tongue shot.

Sigh…good times, good times.  Since this infamous shoot, we’ve gotten Harper’s Bazaar (with all its Sears Portrait Studio goodness) and several Entertainment Weekly covers, but none have quite matched the hotness of Original Recipe Vanity Fair.  And while one of us is pragmatic and the other more emotional (don’t think it’s too hard to guess which is which, either ;-)), we both have every possible appendage crossed that BD2 promo will bring us something comparable.  We’re putting all our usual #goodRKvibes out into the universe on this one.  #MakeItHappen

(Credit: much thanks to KStewartNews and RPLife for the majority of these photos and scans.  We appreciate everything you do for this fandom. #RockStars)