Glossed Over

Wintour Wednesdays: "She Doesn't Really Like Women"

Welcome to Wintour Wednesdays, our peek inside the unauthorized biography Front Row—Anna Wintour: What Lies Beneath the Chic Exterior of Vogue’s Editor in Chief by Jerry Oppenheimer. Is Wintour’s glacial demeanor affected or genuine? How did she develop her affinity for fashion? And how many decades has she had that haircut, anyway? Let’s find out!

The book’s prologue immediately tackles a burning question: exactly how far removed from reality was The Devil Wears Prada? Turns out, not very much. Author Oppenheimer opens with a glance at a woman on her way to a job interview with Vogue, wearing the Wintour-mandated high heels and bare legs in the dead of winter.

It’s known among the fashion world cognoscenti that Anna is prone to hire based on dress and looks, let alone spike stories if someone is not photogenic enough for her. “If we’re talking about fashion editors, on the whole it’s important to me that they have a sense of style,” she’s intoned. And on the editorial side... “after a few months they will end up looking like Vogue. It just rubs off that way.” As a Vogue editor who knows and abides by Anna’s rules notes, “People who work here have to look a certain way. If somebody hasn’t changed their appearance within six months…something isn’t going right.”

While Wintour appears to be inflexible about her appearance standards, she’s certainly malleable when it comes to intimidation! The interviewing candidate explains:

 “Anna was very, very cool and contradicted everything I said. She would ask me questions and I would answer in the most intelligent way I could, and then she would contradict me. For instance, she said, ‘What would you do in the music section?’ I said something about ‘going very upscale.’ And she said, ‘We’re a populist magazine.’ [Ha!—Ed.] She asked me what I’d do with another section, and I told her I thought that deserved a populist view. She said, ‘We’re an upscale magazine.’ She just didn’t want me to win.”

Of course, our candidate could reassure herself—it wasn’t personal. According to her:

“The thing is, she doesn’t really like women, which is certainly curious for the editor of the world’s most influential fashion magazine for women.”

Curious, sure, but woefully evident in the pages of Vogue.

Next week: Anna’s childhood forays into fashion include modifying her school uniform (ooh, rebellious) and eschewing athletics lest strenuous exercise render her legs misshapen.

Working Girl Wednesdays: A Retrospective

At last, we’ve wrapped up our journey to the world of working women in 1964. Sure, Sex and the Office was rather ridiculous, but it was also delivered a healthy dose of perspective. Aren’t you glad to live in an era where sexual harassment laws exist and women don’t have to justify working outside the home?

Here’s a brief review of the many lessons Helen Gurley Brown imparted. Hey, you never know when you’ll have a chance to time travel!

• How to love a boss—even if that boss is (gasp!) female! (The advice on how to, ahem, love a boss comes later.)

• Why showing generous amounts of cleavage is a savvy negotiation strategy

• The best way to manage a 16-step makeup regimen—for work

• Why “a retarded beginning” is, in fact, a good thing

• Flattery will get you everywhere

• Guaranteed conversational techniques to land a job without ever discussing your career

• Lunch breaks are so complex they require three whole chapters encompassing food, sex, and even more sex

• Drinking alcohol at work is completely justifiable

• Bilking your company when you travel for business is easy!

• Advanced techniques for convincing men to pay your way

• There’s no excuse for rebuffing a co-worker’s advances

• Apparently, the women of the early 1960s enjoyed a beating

• Five words: “Him heap big man inside”

• How to launch a career as a real working girl

• Why women should thank their husbands for letting them hold a job

• How to pick Jewish people out of a crowd

Next week, Working Girl Wednesdays will morph into…Wintour Wednesdays. I’ll be dishing the juicy details of Anna Wintour’s life, courtesy of Jerry Oppenheimer’s biography Front Row—Anna Wintour: What Lies Beneath the Chic Exterior of Vogue’s Editor in Chief.

Not surprisingly, Wintour’s childhood concerns haven’t changed much. For instance, at age ten, Wintour was told she was a gifted runner who could eventually be an Olympic-level competitor. Her response: “How frightful! What on earth will happen to my legs?”

Next week: is it possible Anna Wintour has never eaten a full meal in the presence of another human being?

Vogue: Shopping Saves Lives, Marriages, and Sykes

In case the interminable pages of advertisements didn’t make it clear, Vogue has just one simple request for you: spend money! Virtually every page in the October issue has something to buy—from Ralph Lauren fragrance to Tiffany bangles to pretty much every garment that can conceivably be crafted out of fur. (Seriously, so much fur. Is Anna Wintour trying to provoke another pie in the face?)

But until I read this issue, I didn’t know that shopping isn’t merely a way to fill the Vogue-induced perception of a void in my wardrobe. Actually, shopping is an essential pursuit that does more than extract insane sums of money from women to fill the coffers of multinational conglomerates who manufacture everything in the Third World. No, shopping is the solution for everything!

For instance, there’s this anecdote from Joan Juliet Buck’s “Costumes for the Revolution” wherein she discusses her mother’s daring 1968 escape from the demonstration-roiled French capital:

My mother, caught in the upheaval on a little spring shopping trip to Paris, coped with customary brio. She tracked down her father’s old chauffeur and persuaded him to convey her up to Belgium on a tankful of bartered gasoline, with all her new clothes in the trunk.

If she hadn’t had a pile of brand new Parisian designs to protect, she might never have found the courage to seek out a working-class person and bribe her way out of France! Quick, someone commission a TV movie about this incredible triumph of the human spirit!

For those who’ve never been forced to flee a foreign city, a trip to a retailer can serve as the very foundation of a relationship. In “Bliss Travels,” the writer describes how depressed she became after moving to Berlin.  She was so despondent she couldn’t muster the fortitude to slip into her selection of brand new designer dresses. (I’m sure you can relate.) But this story has a happy ending: her husband had available credit.

Back in Germany in December, Justin took me to the KaDeWe, the largest department store in continental Europe, and led me to the Wolford counter. It was cold outside. If I was going to wear dresses, I needed tights.

To my Berliner friends who implied that marriage is pointless, I point to my tights.

Indeed! Without a husband, who will buy your legwear for you?

And in Plum Sykes’ “A Twist, to the Wrist,” my favorite writer describes how shopping is not a frivolous diversion but, in fact, one which provides a woman with a meaningful odyssey that will forever alter her destiny:

There are three things a woman really needs at 38: a husband, at least one child, and a dress with long sleeves, which, I have discovered over the years, may be harder to come by than the husband. I found two potential husbands in the space of four years—and married one of them. But in all that time, I found only one really good dress with long sleeves, despite looking for such a frock just as diligently as I looked for the husband.

The entire article explains Sykes’ continuing quest to find her own Holy Grail, a long-sleeved dress. Her tireless pursuit takes her from downtown Manhattan boutiques to designer showrooms to lunch at exclusive restaurants in pursuit of this rare item women absolutely require. Sykes has selflessly devoted much time and energy to tracking down these elusive artifacts. Such an altruist!

In this rocky economic climate, Vogue realizes that shopping is a surefire way to stimulate the economy. Packed with stories about the vital role that spending money plays in our lives, this issue has truly opened my eyes. Who knew that serving my country would allow me to simultaneously achieve the greatest personal fulfillment? Shopping will fill more than my closet—it will fill my heart! I’ll meet you at the mall!

Live Blog: September Vogue's 798 Pages

Last week, when I bought an armful of September issues, the cashier at my favorite newsstand said, "You've got your reading cut out for you." Little did he know that I planned to spend an entire day poring over the pages of just one magazine.

For the record: I have not opened this issue of Vogue, nor have I read what any other blogs had to say about anything other than the cover. The only thing I've peeked at was the back cover, because by the time I reach it, I may be too delirious to realize I've reached the end.

August's Vogue Made Me Feel Better About My Life (and My Underarms)

Whenever I feel a bit down, I turn to Vogue to distract me. Not because the content makes me happy—but because reading an issue always serves as a reminder that, no matter my troubles, there are millions of completely unimportant things I could worry about instead! The August issue forced me out of my funk to ponder the provenance of the term “mogulette” (page 70), whether my underarms need a surgical intervention (page 220), and what circumstances, exactly, would require Anna Wintour’s three assistants to wrangle a visa from a country under siege (page 249).

Below, I’ve listed the top five astoundingly frivolous matters that Vogue caused me to consider. This may be the first time a fashion magazine has made me feel good about my life! If I were the kind of woman who would seriously consider cosmetic surgery for my armpits, life would be so much more complex.

1. From Grace Coddington’s quote on the “Contributors” page:

“[I love] indulging in expensive clothes—cheaper ones don’t look good on an older person.”

But snobbery looks good at any age! Should I be investing more in my retirement accounts to cover the designer clothes my dotage will apparently require?

2. From the Kate Moss profile, “View from the Top,” by Plum Sykes:

The antithesis of the airbrushed celebrity, Moss, now 34, has done nothing to disguise her age: Her kohl-lined, chestnut-brown eyes have tiny creases at the edges, and her makeup-free face is as natural as ever, with two little lines across the top of her nose…The reason she won’t do Botox is that if a photographer asked her to frown in a picture and she couldn’t, she’d be “really embarrassed,” she says.

Yes, one must have a solid excuse for not wanting botulism toxin injected into one’s face. What is my justification for not immediately obliterating the tiniest signs of aging? I’m only a few years younger than Moss!

3. Sykes again, talking about Moss’ Topshop clothing line:

She shows me a slew of clothes that are extraordinarily desirable considering their price: She holds up a slightly Beatles-esque wool sweater…(around $110); there’s a charming black chiffon flapper dress that could easily wander into a cocktail party on Park Avenue ($240); most of all I want the skinny black sweater with sheer chiffon blouson sleeves ($100)…

“Considering their price”? Has Plum Sykes ever met anyone who isn’t a millionaire? (Okay, that’s something I actually wonder about.)

4. From the Chris Evert profile “A Shining Moment”:

Tennis champion Chris Evert has won eighteen Grand Slam titles. But her best is yet to come—as a bride-to-be at 53.

Now that I’m married, should I even bother with a career? Because it seems landing a man is the greatest accomplishment a woman can ever aspire to!

5. Finally, from “Joint Session” by Judith Newman:

...I was visiting [Gerald Pitman, M.D.] to see whether I was a candidate for liposuction of the knee. They’d always been pleasantly dimpled, but now, as I got older, they were undeniably pudgy. Knees are not the worst of my problems, God knows…

So there are doctors who’ll remove excess fat and skin from your knees, but is there a surgical procedure to eliminate excessive narcissism?

See! Don’t you feel better already?

Is Fashion Racist? Fashion-Industry Mouthpiece Vogue Says No

In the July issue, Vogue asks “Is Fashion Racist?” You don’t even have to read the article to know what they conclude. I’d give them credit for tackling this topic at all—especially considering Vogue's problematic recent covers featuring Jennifer Hudson and LeBron James—except that the whole thing reads less like a serious examination of the subject and more like a bland paean to the mysterious ways of fashion. See, the industry isn’t actually racist! It’s just doing what it’s always done! Oh, isn’t fashion wonderful?

The article centers entirely on the dearth of diversity among models, and includes an intrusively long diversion about the decline of the supermodel. While the popularity dip of one-name wonders like Naomi and Cindy is certainly linked to a scarcity of color on the runway, it doesn’t fully explain the current state of affairs.

And why not broaden the discussion beyond the rarefied halls of the modeling world? How many minorities work in apparel design? How many in retail? For that matter, how many minority viewpoints are represented at Vogue? Woefully devoid of any context, the article makes no attempt to explain whether the situation on the runways is endemic or anomalous.

But that’s all moot, because, according to Vogue, there isn’t a problem! On to the text of the article:

This magazine exists to inspire women. How do fashion editors get inspired by watching the same procession of anonymous, blandly pretty, very young, very skinny, washed-out blondes with their hair scraped back in show after show?

Why is author Vicki Woods asking the reader and not, oh, a fashion editor? The only one quoted in this article is André Leon Talley, and he’s relegated to discussing runway shows. Also, I refuse to believe that Vogue  “exists to inspire,” unless it’s designed to inspire us to anger.

Speaking of very young and very skinny, the article then devotes significant inches to the personal stories of models Chanel Iman, Jourdan Dunn, and Arlenis Sosa. Which only proves that there are a whopping three young women who aren’t white who get modeling work (though they couldn’t even bother to get a translator for Sosa). 

In any case, no one in fashion is responsible for anything. Model booker Neil Hamil reports that he hears “Well, we already have our black girl” when he calls about castings. Photographer Mario Testino says, “People come in groups; we react to the supply.”

As for designers:

Maybe some designers just won’t use black girls? Because (in the overheard words of a Paris designer I can’t name) they are “too strong for the clothes”?

Wait! Did you catch that? This article just quoted (albeit anonymously) someone in fashion being truly insensitive to race. What was the response to this whispered comment? Why won’t Vogue name the designer? Do other designers agree with this anonymous assessment? Who knows? The article moves on to a fawning description of Alber Elbaz of Lanvin, who says he was “trained” to use black models. Charming.

Time for more vague platitudes about the nature of clothes and beauty! Casting director Russell Marsh, who works for Prada, trots out this justification:

“It’s the clothes that take much more priority than the girl...”

If the models are faceless and unimportant, why does their skin color matter at all? Let’s ask designer Marc Jacobs, who is apparently a champion of diversity since his last show had two non-white models. He falls prey to the supermodel straw man, and then says this:

But fashion is a cycle, he reminds me. “Things move on.”

Why should any race ever be in or out of style? Skin color isn't the same as skirt length.

Wait, entire paragraphs have passed without mentioning the heyday of supermodels. Let’s get back to that!

There are encouraging signs that models, rather than celebrities, may be slipping back into their former role as inspirers of women.

There’s that “inspiration” thing again! So, wasn’t this whole article inspired by a disproportionately small number of successful black models? A surge in the popularity of models, while beneficial to models overall, is not a solution to race-based disparity. 

Casting director James Scully:

Scully points out that the last decade has been bad for models. “And when it’s tough for models, it’s really tough for black models.”

What is his point, exactly? If white people are struggling, that somehow makes it okay for everyone else to struggle even more?

Ultimately, the article never admits to much of a problem—and therefore proffers no solutions except that fashion is cyclical, and proponents of diversity should hang around until non-white women are trendy again. How long might that take? Just wait and see!

Vogue doesn’t need to sit back and merely reflect fashion in its current state. Anna Wintour holds tremendous sway over the industry. But Vogue turned what could have been a groundbreaking cry for change into an argument for the status quo, since any indictment of the fashion world would be an indictment of the magazine, too. (And their one-page photo collage, above, is not a strong defense.) If fashion is racist, is Vogue complicit in that racism?

Sex-y Secrets • Seeing Sex and the City this weekend? Check out this article from Fashion Week Daily, which lifts the veil (pun intended) on the film’s relationship with Vogue.

Lowest Common Denominator: Vogue, June

7: Days I was in possession of this issue before I realized Sarah Jessica Parker is sitting between a man’s legs on the cover

1.333: Pages devoted to France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

6.333: Pages covering Cindy McCain, wife of U.S. presidential nominee Senator John McCain

20: Number of names appearing in boldface in André Leon Talley’s column, “Life with André”

1: Ostensibly non-satirical song by Ashanti, called “Diva,” that name-drops André Leon Talley (Sample lyrics, as quoted by the man himself: “Give them runway, now bring it!...Let me see that layout…Don’t come for me, I’ll come for you.”)

Zero: Chance I’ll be wearing the drop-crotch pants featured in “Drop Everything” by Sarah Mower

348,320: Estimated number of mentions of designer Philip Lim in this issue. I get it, already!

$1,242: Total cost of an ensemble labeled the “bare minimum” for writer Jane Herman’s trip to Tulum (That’s a $362 Alexander Wang top, $385 shorts by Yigal Azrouel, and $495 Bally heels.)

€250: Price of the “bare essentials” Beauty Director Sarah Brown purchased on arrival in Italy in lieu of carry ing her necessities on the plane

3: Occurrences of the unctuous term “Vogue-ette,” as used by writer Plum Sykes in “Rebel Romance,” which chronicles the unholy melding of the Sex and the City movie’s fake version of Vogue and real-life Vogue

3: Nonfictional Vogue staffers apparently appearing in the film (Talley, West Coast Fashion Editor Lawren Howell, and Sykes)

4: Locales depicted in this month’s fashion spreads—New York, San Francisco, Mali, and Patagonia

31: Age difference, in years, between Pierce Brosnan and model Daria Werbowy, who both appear in “San Francisco Chronicles”

18: Age difference, in years, between profile subject Cindy McCain and her husband

1: Evidently unselfconscious reference to Gilligan’s Island, by Sally Singer in “From Here to Timbuktu...” (Quote: “It’s hard to imagine a more chic and gloriously Mrs. Thurston Howell III-like rebuff to e-mail messages than ‘Talk soon. In Timbuktu.’ This is precisely what I’m doing…”)

18: Photos of Sarah Jessica Parker in this issue, including the cover, the table of contents, Anna Wintour’s “Letter from the Editor,” a Garnier ad, “Rebel Romance,” and “Marry, Marry, Quite Contrary”

To-Do List • Attempting to walk in Lucky’s shoes? Deadline’s approaching! The cut-off to enter the magazine’s caption-writing contest is Monday, March 3, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

And if you’re looking for reading material beyond the new issue of Vogue (what is up with Drew Barrymore on the cover?), these stories have captured our attention this week:

• Anna Wintour responds to Carine Roitfeld calling her a “puppet” by refusing to comment, thereby crushing our hopes for an all-out intercontinental war between the Vogue editors.

• Take a glimpse at the past—and the present, and, we fear, the future—of women’s magazines. (Thanks, Melinika!)

• InStyle mixes up the non-Beyoncé members of Destiny’s Child.

• And are Holocaust memorials wildly inappropriate locales for fashion shoots? One brand, facing backlash from shots of a male model at the Vienna monument, admits they “didn’t think through everything.” Well, that much is clear. (via SuperColossal)

A Glossed Over Guide: How to Be Carine Roitfeld, Editor of French Vogue

Carine Roitfeld, the editor of French Vogue, is the subject of a profile in the current issue of New York magazine. The article by Amy Larocca radiates a staggering amount of antipathy—perhaps best exemplified by the choice to recreate Roitfeld’s Gallic accent and broken English verbatim. (Actual quote: “I have in my office—what you call in America?”)

Perhaps because we’re so accustomed to the sickly sweet world of fashion magazine profiles, where everybody loves everybody else, we were thrilled to see an actual, honest-to-goodness point of view. Whether we agree with Larocca’s take is almost irrelevant; we learned so much from this profile. Roitfeld may be near  universally revered as an arbiter of chic, but many of her secrets were laid bare. What did we learn about navigating the tricky path to becoming a top magazine editor?

1. Portray yourself in the best possible light. Literally.

She is a fiftyish woman having a double espresso in the lobby of the Carlyle on Madison Avenue. “For me, it is best to be the youngest in hotel,” she explains, “and I was not having this feeling at the Mercer.” She has come to New York for her son Vladimir’s 23rd birthday, which she celebrated the night before with dinner at Indochine. “It makes me happy because there is vewy great lighting,” she says about the restaurant. “Vewy flatter.” (Roitfeld has reached a compromise with the hard American r by converting them all to ws.)

2. Believe in yourself, regardless of immaterial details like training or education.

“Some editors, they have that, they know all the designer from the beginning of the nineteenth century. They know this is triple cashmere, this is simple cashmere. Maybe they went to fashion school. Me, I don’t. I just get a feeling about what is exciting. It is all just from feeling. So I don’t know”—she pulls her lips into a pout and gives one of those poufy little French exhales—“I think maybe I have a talent.”

3. Do everything you can to keep fashion the exclusive province of the wealthy and slender.

Because of this, Roitfeld’s French Vogue is the polar opposite of most American fashion magazines. It is unconcerned with making fashion wearable or accessible to its readers. It is not inclusive: There is no advice on how to dress if you’re shaped like a pear or about to turn 50.

In Roitfeld’s world, models are never too skinny, diamonds are never too expensive.

4. Lob passive-aggressive insults at more influential editors. (Excellent! We’ve got a head start on mastering this one.)

“The American editors are very, how you say, slick,” Roitfeld says. “Very perfect. Hair is perfect, they have a manicure. They are very clean, they follow fashion. I don’t think they take many risks. They do the total look of Prada. Me, I wear a lot of Japanese piece mixed with a bit of classic Hermès and Prada. Even though jeans suit me, I never wear jeans.”…

“It’s very difficult not to become a puppet,” she says of it all. “Like Anna, she becomes so iconic that she becomes like a puppet. I don’t want to be like that, I don’t want to wear this uniform, I don’t want to be just an envelope.”

Roitfeld styled a shoot last year in homage to Wintour’s look, puppetlike or not, starring a model with a bob, dark sunglasses, and many a fur coat. (“PETA, they like to pay attention to her, not to me,” she says, “so this is good for me.”)

5. Bite the hand that feeds you.

In an industry where accessories count for the bulk of her advertisers’ revenue, she has this to say: “Right now I think that fashion in the world becomes a bit boring. There is so much money, and I feel a bit when you go to shows they want to sell so many handbags, and for me, well, I do not like handbags. I do not wear handbags. It is not a nice look, to carry a handbag.”

6. Look for the good in everyone!

“…So people always say that I weigh my staff, and it is totally wrong. All my girls are very skinny and very chic and very beautiful. And if they are not beautiful, well, then they are very charming. So people always say that I weigh them, but no. I don’t weigh my girls.”

7. Know what tools are essential for doing your job well.

Her desk is nearly empty—Roitfeld does not know how to use a computer—save for a telephone, a pair of black suede gloves, some color printouts of a fashion shoot, and a tiny snakeskin clutch.

8. Have an open mind about other cultures!

Roitfeld is 48 hours off a ten-day vacation in Thailand during which she worked a great deal on meditation.

How was this trip?

“You think this will be so glamorous,” she sighs. “You have the idea in your mind and then you get there and the people in the hotel …” She grimaces and gestures hugely in the hip area. “There were lots of people who were so fat and like that.”

Well, we hope they were at least charming!

More Glossed Over Guides: Parlaying Your Pregnancy Into Press; Becoming a Big-Time Beauty Editor