At just after 3 p.m., on an August day in New York City so hot that even the spotted lanternflies don’t feel like fluttering about, four people in a photo studio stand around a blob of orange jello.
The dome-shaped gelatin has been baked with several arcylic rings by Chofa inside, a laborious, multi-hour process that involved setting the mold with several layers so the rings are suspended in a spatially pleasing way. Surrounding the mold are smaller cubes of jello in a variety of colors: highlighter yellow, radioactive waste green, and Gatorade Cool blue.
A fifth—photographer David Brandon Geeting—looks through his camera lens and then back at a monitor. His expression is serious, his brow furrowed. He shakes his head. “I think it’s too desaturated,” he says. The four people nod. They remove cubes. They add cubes. They move cubes around. (“The pink and yellow can come slightly forward,” he directs.) After several minutes of fiddling, it’s time to step away from the jello. Someone pokes—hard—in order to make it jiggle and wiggle.
Click! An image appears on the screen. It looks like someone took an MRI of the innards of Jolly from Candy Land.
The photographer smiles. We got the shot. “The jello has no bad angles,” says the on-set stylist.
You may be wondering what Vogue and jello have in common. I’m so glad you asked. It all started in 1910 when this magazine—then a mere 18 years old—published an article called “Spring Luncheon for Little Girl’s Birthday,” where we gave the recipe for the following dessert: “Stir one tablespoonful of sugar into the juice of one orange and one lemon, and add to the jello when it has partly cooled. Just as the mixture begins to set, add the white of one egg beaten to a froth; then beat till it becomes like snow in appearance. Serve with whipped cream.” (Look, professional photography wasn’t readily accessible in the early 1900s, and neither was commercial air travel. Story options were limited.)