Personally, I can’t imagine Vogue Paris Editor in Chief Emmanuelle Alt having any inkling of what makes women femme fatales. With a few rare exceptions, she has stripped Vogue Paris of its sensuality and any exploration of eroticism. When I sense that perhaps Vogue Paris is swinging its attitude towards a more sensual balance, Alt leaves me with sterility all over again.

The prelude to Vogue Paris’ March issue, with a dramatic Lara Stone on the cover, lensed by Mert & Marcus promises us:

“What is a femme fatale?” asks Vogue Paris editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt in her March 2014 editorial. “Is she a miracle of nature? A vamp? A master of sartorial enhancement? She’s a fantasy figure, sure, but so complexly drawn that try to name just one or two of these women and you’ll realize that they are all very different.”

To answer the question, we called on not just one, but four generations of muses. Fashion superstar Lara Stone lays bare a troubling beauty in deep black and magnetic red for Mert & Marcus on the cover and from the flaming-hot figure of the model launched by Vogue Paris back in 2007 as she raises the temperature in tuxedos, to Jane Birkin’s essentials and the magnetism of Betty Catroux, via the disturbing innocence of Marine Vacht, the muse takes shape inside the magazine. But she’s not just one woman, the femme fatale is more an iconic, astounding allure that breaks all the rules. This same refusal of classic codes also runs through editorials featuring some of the biggest girls of the moment, including Natasha Poly, Edie Campbell and Karlie Kloss, who readily play with their femininity as they explore what the term really means. And no-one more so than Toni Garrn, who sacrificed her honey blonde locks live for the magazine, in favor of an assertive bob in this issue. Stunning Amazonian women have always been at home in the magazine, evidenced in this month’s supplement of beautiful vintage images from Coming into Fashion, a Century of Photography at Condé Nast, a new exhibition at Paris’ Palais Galliera March 1 - May 25.

Here are some recent Vogue Paris, femme fatale editorials that encouraged me in the last year that the magazine would once again embrace a more erotic mindset. Overall, though, Vogue Paris under Emmanuelle Alt has not kept up with more interesting magazines like W Magazine or Interview.

Is this March 2014 Lara Stone on fire cover a signal of change? It reminds me of an Interview cover. To be determined. With Emmanuelle Alt, I’ve learned to keep my expectations low. Vogue Paris has become fashion milktoast, as I feared it would when sharing my thoughts: