Closet confessions from fashion's finest

Compared to Vogue, Elle is like the younger, hipper, less judgmental sibling — more willing to open itself up to new, not-so-polished talent, to forgive less-than-stellar ensembles and open its doors to celebs who aren’t Anne Hathaway or Charlize Theron or whoever else is part of Vogue’s loop of redundant cover faces.

Unlike Vogue, Elle doesn’t limit itself to princessy gowns. Its pages aren’t filled with lofty manors, palatial villas or posh penthouses. Some of the models and celebs who fill the pages prefer to lounge in beatnik apartments, laid-back pubs or, in the case of Diane von Furstenburg, the odd office headquarters here or there.

Tic tacked: Charlotte Rampling’s mood board, snapshots of the sultry beauty from her younger days and a few of her favorite things. Her current go-to shoe? “Brogues,” she says. “I wear them with everything.”

Which explains why the magazine’s tome The Ellements of Personal Style, feels more, well, real — and current. The women of Elle aren’t cookie-cutter socialites who wouldn’t know a discount coupon if it bit them in their Pilates-toned butts. Like a scrapbook filled with old snapshots from their childhood, red carpet looks and beautifully-shot images of the celebrity mingling at home, the pages of Elle’s book offer a less artful, but still well-curated peek into the star’s homes.

Here, Erin Wasson presents the back wall of her bedroom, a brick panel laden with bags hanging on hooks haphazardly arranged. We discover that the sectional couch was pilfered — oh wait, “adopted” — from an Elle shoot only last year and that Wasson has a penchant for oversized cartoon heads, scavenged from a friend’s apartment just before they were headed for the garbage shoot.

French favor: Fashion fave and Balenciaga muse Charlotte Gainsbourg

There are interesting, little-known facts about the women who agree to open up their homes to us. Padma Lakshmi and her ex-husband Salman Rushdie may no longer be together but that didn’t stop her from hanging the Francisco Clemente portrait gifted by Rushdie above the bed in her East Village apartment. Diane von Furstenburg prefers to hang her Clemente portrait where it can be admired by everyone — in the lobby of her building in New York’s Meatpacking District.

Light house: Art house fixture Yvonne Force Villareal, photographed in front of a light installation by her husband

The book also serves as an introduction to industry insiders with scene-stealing wardrobes and even more interesting lives. Art scenester Yvonne Force Villareal, co-founder of Art Production Fund (the outfit that helped Vanessa Beechcroft finesse her much-buzzed-about performance piece “Show,” which featured 20 females garbed in Tom Ford for Gucci bikinis with five stark naked at the Guggenheim), is the sort the wears catsuits practically every day.

Jewel to the finish: “Always wear jewelry that can double as a weapon. (You) never know when it can come in handy,” notes Erin Wasson.

“It’s black and tight, like a body stocking, so you feel smooth and comfortable,” Villareal explains. Her home, stocked with John Currin, Rachel Feinstein and Martin Eder works, is a showpiece, but a playful one. Not stuffy or too curated that it can’t be enjoyed. Which is representative of the spirit of Elle.

In the foreword, the magazine’s editor in chief Roberta Myers celebrates the spirit of the publication: how its original incarnation as a French magazine offered women a voice. Elle founder Helene Lazareff advocated pants for her readers during the winter months when sporting trousers was considered illegal. She gave Simon de Beavoir and Colette space to write about the modern woman’s travails.

Big aspirations: Glee’s Lea Michelle tends to favor bouffant ball skirts, but inside Elle photographs her chilling in a comfy jackets and cropped shorts.

It may not have the same ball-breaking forward stride it started out with but what Elle has never lacked is a youthful zeitgeist, a willingness to discover people and things that are new, whether or not they fall within what’s considered fashionable.

In this book they are able to share, within its 255 pages, a somewhat more youthful portrait of the movers and shakers in Hollywood and beyond. And it’s this rare unstudied glimpse of their inner lives (and closets, natch) that makes it worth the read.