In August, Elle split its cover between Adut Akech with a very short accompanying piece, and Kendall Jenner with no story other than a pictorial fashion spread. My theory at the time was that their original cover plans fell through, and they scrambled to plug the hole. But now here we are again, this time with Kaia Gerber, no profile, and a mammoth Kaia Shows Us How to Wear the Resort Collections spread (as if very many among us are pondering this issue). Maybe Elle truly does want to go back to the era of more models and fewer actors, or couldn’t lock in a cover option or a writer. Who knows. Two may not be a trend yet, but it’s the beginning of a pattern, and hopefully it’s the “we did this on purpose and it’s totally what we wanted to have happen” kind of pattern rather than the “dammit, how come we keep getting stuck without cover profiles” variety.

And so, herein, just a bunch of photos of Kaia Gerber striking poses. I haven’t been shy about saying I don’t think she’s a great model, so it won’t surprise you that I think these are… okay, at best. Some are fine! Some are not. But they’re all basically playing the same note on the piano.

[Photos: Nathaniel Goldberg; the December/January issue of Elle is on newsstands December 7]