Kate Upton for Elle France, January 2013

American model Kate Upton, photographed by Matt Jones for Elle France’s January 2013 issue, arrives on the French newsstand as “American Beauty”—a title that already announces the editorial thesis. This is not another barn-lingerie Cosmo package and not a men’s-magazine smolder. Elle France wanted a casual, sunlit, fashion-literate Upton: tousled hair, smoky eye, clothes that look borrowed from a stylish friend’s weekend rather than from a red-carpet trunk. The January timing helped. After holiday maximalism, French glossies often reset toward wearable ease, and Upton’s open American energy fit that reset better than a frozen couture stare.

Fashion editor Nora Bordjah shaped the wardrobe. Hair came from Adir Abergel; makeup from Kate Lee. The team’s job was translation. By early 2013 Upton was globally recognizable from Sports Illustrated and American mass media; French Elle needed her to speak a local fashion dialect—mix of A.P.C., DSquared2, Topshop, Zadig & Voltaire, Princesse Tam Tam, Aurélie Bidermann jewelry—without erasing the American openness that made her famous. That balance is harder than it looks. Too much Americana and the issue feels imported; too much French severity and you lose the reason readers care about this particular cover star.

Matt Jones, again, with a different brief

Jones had already photographed Upton for Cosmopolitan’s November 2012 western lingerie story. The Elle France assignment proves how much photographer and magazine brief change a model’s temperature. Where Cosmo wanted hay and heat, Elle France wants ease and chic. Light stays bright; poses stay playful; clothes include varsity jackets, crewnecks, and soft separates that contemporary blogs singled out as the real winners of the set. The body is still present—Upton’s silhouette was never going to vanish—but the story sells lifestyle fashion more than lingerie narrative.

That shift matters historically. Early-2010s fashion media was testing whether swimsuit-famous models could hold serious fashion pages without being mocked as “only body.” Elle France’s answer, at least for this January issue, was yes—if you dress the story as casual beauty rather than as a dare. Nora Bordjah’s mixes keep Upton inside a French magazine’s comfort zone: recognizable labels, wearable shapes, nothing that looks like a costume from an American music video. Jones’s direction keeps her moving and smiling enough that the fashion never becomes a lecture.

It also shows why credits matter more than celebrity gossip when you revisit old covers. Same model, same photographer, different magazine—and the resulting fantasy changes. Cosmo sold flirtation and advice culture. Elle France sold chic approachability for a French women’s fashion audience. Anyone collapsing both into one vague “sexy Kate Upton shoot” erases the editorial craft that made each booking worth a cover price in its own market.

What “American Beauty” meant on a French cover

French women’s magazines have a long habit of importing American stars as types: the California blonde, the New York career woman, the Hollywood actress on holiday. Upton’s “American Beauty” framing leans into openness and physical confidence while asking French readers to accept her as a fashion subject. The cover is not apologizing for her fame; it is restyling it. The headline does cultural work before a single garment is noticed: it tells Paris this is an American export being welcomed, not a local ingénue being invented from scratch.

Abergel’s tousled hair and Lee’s smoky eye do quiet cultural work. They soften the swimsuit-catalog shine associated with Upton’s American press and replace it with a slightly lived-in evening-morning hybrid—the look of someone who went out, came home, and still photographs well at brunch. That hybrid is classic Elle territory. The magazine often prefers beauty that seems inhabited, as if the cover star might actually walk into a café after the sitting. Perfect plastic gloss would have fought the casual wardrobe; lived-in polish supports it and keeps the “American Beauty” idea from turning into a pageant slogan.

Clothes that argue for approachability

Coverage of the editorial repeatedly praised varsity jackets and crewneck sweatshirts—pieces that pull Upton away from pure glamour and toward collegiate ease. Beside those sit sharper fashion names and lingerie-adjacent labels like Princesse Tam Tam, so the story never becomes a denim-only casual shoot. Bordjah’s balance is the point: enough fashion to justify Elle, enough ease to keep Upton’s public warmth. Jewelry notes from fashion directories of the period flag Aurélie Bidermann beside A.P.C.—a pairing that signals French editorial taste more than American mall fashion. Even when the clothes look simple, the accessories and label mix tell French readers this is still their magazine’s game.

Approachability here is not the same as “low effort.” The styling still edits. Seams sit cleanly; proportions are considered; the eye is guided back to the face. What changes is the fantasy. Instead of “untouchable goddess,” Elle France sells “stylish woman you might sit across from.” For a January issue trying to feel fresh rather than festive, that fantasy is strategically correct. It also distinguishes the feature from Jalouse’s October 2012 armor and from GQ Italia’s nocturnal heat: Elle France invites rather than intimidates.

January issue logic and sideways comparisons

A January cover often resets the year after holiday maximalism. Elle France’s choice of casual American beauty fits that calendar: less sequin, more sweater; less party armor, more day-to-night softness. Upton becomes a New Year mood board—optimistic, physical, stylish without severity. Readers scanning a newsstand in early 2013 would have seen a familiar international face offered as a fresh local fashion conversation rather than as recycled swimsuit heat from the previous summer’s American press cycle.

Compare the set with Upton’s Jalouse October 2012 high-fashion coats or her GQ Italia summer sensuality and the Elle France January story looks like the friendliest invitation of the three: come in, borrow the jacket, keep the smoky eye. Matt Jones supplies continuity of craft; Nora Bordjah and the beauty team supply the French accent. One useful archive method is wardrobe temperature—start with the varsity and crewneck frames, move through softer evening-adjacent looks, and end on the cover face. Ask, frame by frame, whether the clothes are selling day, night, or the blur between them. The sequence tells you what Elle France thought French readers needed from Kate Upton in January 2013: not a scandal, not a swimsuit rerun, but a casual cover star who could wear the season’s easy pieces as if they were already hers.