Forget how many trend pieces it takes to make a genre: how many staff departures does it take to make an exodus?

Details entertainment editor David Walters resigned late last week to take a job at The Daily, according to a Conde Nast source. Mr. Walters, formerly of GQ, is the third high-level departure from the men’s magazine in a month.

He follows Paul Katz, launched and ran Details' website, and articles editor Mike Guy. Mr. Katz now handles partner strategy and development for Flipboard, the startup social magazine for iPads. Mr. Guy was recently named editorial director at Maer Roshan’s addiction and recovery site, The Fix, which has been staffing up since it raised $2.4 million in equity financing in April.

Reached for comment, Mr. Roshan said he is excited for Mr. Guy to bring his weighty men’s fashion journalism experience to the operation.

“Finding out that he used to be Hunter Thompson’s assistant sealed the deal for me,” he said.

According to our source, more departures are coming, but the masthead decimation may be a short-term headache. After all, Details is already among the leaner machines in the Conde Nast stable, a fact that helped it survive McKinsey & Co.’s massacre-by-PowerPoint in 2009, which condemned the more popular titles Gourmet and Domino.

In the past, Details has also benefited from a longstanding strategic relationship with GQ. In the McKinsey purge, GQ publisher Peter Hunsinger lobbied for Details’ survival by arguing that if Details folded, its advertisers(most of which overlapped with GQ) might go to Esquire, igniting a second Hearst vs. Conde advertising competition that would match Elle vs. Vogue in its ferocity.

“We are stronger together,” Mr. Hunsinger told The Observer in 2009. “We run the town.”

But today, Conde’s fraternal alliance does not run New York as smoothly as it once did. During the first half of 2011, both magazines posted roughly three percent losses in ad pages­—the only two men’s titles that posted declines, according to Women’s Wear Daily. although GQ still won the category). Hearst’s Esquire posted a 12.5 percent gain, Rodale’s Men’s Health climbed four percent and Jann Wenner’s Men’s Journal climbed five percent.

Details editor Dan Peres did not respond to a request for comment.

"[The Bulgari garden party] just didn't feel right for the brand," publisher Bill Wackermann told WWD.

"Details isn't prime time ... we're late night," he said.

The events will be “more on the DL and not as over-the-top,” one spokesman told WWD.

Mr. Wackermann  took over the magazine's business side in October of last year to reorient Details.

It looks like the book still has some explaining to do to advertisers. Details ad sales are down 24.5 percent so far this year, while GQ and Esquire are up 10.6 and 15.5 percent, respectively.

Details editor Dan Peres answered some existential questions about his magazine at its faux 10th anniversary party at the Boom Boom Room back in March.

"The reality is, we're most certainly one of the smallest magazines in the company in terms of circulation, budget, resources, head count and, to some degree, what our contribution can be and has been to the bottom line of this company," Mr. Peres told The Observer.

"There's an abundance of Fracas at this party," noted Grey Gardens producer Rachael Horovitz, referring to the heady tuberose perfume-not to be confused with an abundance of Farkas, two of whom, Jonathan and wife Somers, lingered nearby.

Ms. Ward's dress, by Marchesa, best described as a peaked brocade meringue, made it difficult for well-wishing guests to get close. "This man is in the book!" Ms. Ward exclaimed, standing with Lehman vet Robert Shapiro. "I see a lot of the Lehman guys are here. I'm so touched they came!"

"Well, you know us Lehman guys, we run in packs," Mr. Shapiro said softly, before asking: "So what was it like being with Imus?"

"You know, he wrote me the loveliest note after I went on the show; it said, 'Dear Vicky, your book is amazing and you are gorgeous, what a winning combination!' And it was on beautiful stationery, with beautiful handwriting," Ms. Ward trilled.

Bald billionaire Ronald Perelman, wearing a cashmere sweater vest under his pinstriped blazer, chatted with society grande dame Louise Grunwald. In a ruched amethyst sheath, his ex-wife Patricia Duff steered clear, posing instead with pundit Monica Crowley while Patrick McMullan squatted snapping their photograph, suggesting the two blond women start a TV show together. "We've actually talked about it!" they giggled in unison.

Details editor Dan Peres arrived with his wife, actress Sarah Wynter, and completed a quick tour before heading back down the stairs. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter was also there, with wife Anna.

"I started the book on my flight over from Washington and I can't wait to finish it on my flight to L.A.," said jet-set bloggeress Arianna Huffington.

"Wait, who's on the back of the book?" financier Steve Rattner asked fellow moneybags Jeffrey Leeds, before flipping his copy over and finding out: superstar New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, whose Greed and Glory on Wall Street was the unofficial prequel to Ms. Ward's tell-all!

"I wrote a blurb for the back of the book, so I must like it, right?" Mr. Auletta said. "No, seriously, I really loved the book; she's done an amazing job creating characters you empathize with."

Like the storm-struck waves Lehmanites failed to avoid, Ms. Ward's dress was a pale, sculptural affair; a feast of jutting peaks of brocade meringue, making it difficult for well-wishing guests to pose for photographs with the Marchesa-clad authoress. Standing with Lehman vet Robert Shapiro, the Vanity Fair–er exclaimed, "This man is in the book! I see a lot of the Lehman guys are here, I'm so touched they came!"

"Well, you know us Lehman guys, we run in packs," Mr. Shapiro softly noted before asking, "so, what was it like being with Imus?"

"You know, he wrote me the loveliest note after I went on the show; it said, 'Dear Vicky, your book is amazing and you are gorgeous, what a winning combination!' And it was on beautiful stationary, with beautiful handwriting"—beautiful is stretched and over-enunciated in that singluar Oxbridge lilt.

Packed like silk-stocking sardines, such a group of high-powered literati are not in the habit of wheedling through so thick a crowd.

Ronald Perelman, wearing a weather-unwise cashmere sweater vest under his pinstriped blazer, chatted with perennially chic Louise Grunwald before saying hello to publicist czar Peggy Siegel.

In a ruched amethyst sheath, Patricia Duff steered clear of her volcanic ex-husband, whose gleaming head was fortunately easily spotted in the crowd. Ms. Duff posed with pundit Monica Crowley while famed photog Patrick McMullan squatted and swayed snapping their photograph and gamely suggesting the two blondes start a TV show together. "We've actually talked about it!" they giggled in unison.

Details editor Dan Peres arrived with actress Sarah Wynter and completed a quick tour before heading back down the stairs. "They had another event," a bystander sympathetically whispered to the Transom. Graydon Carter arrived blustery-haired with wife Anna to well-wish his monthly's latest hardcover hero.

Ken Auletta, who with Greed and Glory on Wall Street wro the unofficial prequel to Ms. Ward's tell-all, told the Transom, "I wrote a blurb for the back of the book, so I must like it, right! No, seriously, I really loved the book, she's done an amazing job creating characters you empathize with."

"I started the book on my flight over from Washington and I can't wait to finish it on my flight to L.A.," bloggess Arianna Huffington told the Transom of her Huffington Post contributor's best seller.

Before leaving, Steve Rattner asked financier Jeffrey Leeds, "Wait, who's on the back of the book?" before flipping his copy over to peruse the back cover.

Grey Gardens producer Rachael Horovitz noted "the abundance of Fracas at this party," not to be confused, of course, with an abundance of Farkas, two of whom, Jonathan and wife Somers, lingered nearby.

There was the faux anniversary, yes, but there was another reason to celebrate: In 2009, a year of reckoning for Condé Nast, when six magazines were shuttered and hundreds were laid off and millions of dollars were shed off the budget, Details survived.

And yet the question persists in almost every corner of the magazine world: How, and why, does Details still exist?

When popular Condé Nast titles Gourmet and Domino folded last year, vigils popped up everywhere: on the Internet, on television, in the papers. But you get the feeling that if Details died, its wake wouldn’t be very well attended. “Why are we still here and Gourmet is not? Why are we here and Cookie is not?” said Dan Peres, the 10-year editor of Details. “I may have opinions to those things, but it’s simply: We’re still here. As I said to my team, after those decisions were made, we deserve to still be here, and now we have to earn it.”

>>READ KOBLIN'S BACKSTORY: THE GILDED AGE OF CONDE NAST IS OVER

Condé Nast sources explained it this way: Details is around because it doesn’t hurt the company. “It’s not such a glaring thing on the bottom line,” said one Condé Nast source. “It doesn’t make any money, but it doesn’t lose a lot of money, either. Why close it and cause the drama?”

“It may not be a cash cow, but if it’s a rounding error, who cares?” said a Condé publisher.

“The reality is, we’re most certainly one of the smallest magazines in the company in terms of circulation, budget, resources, head count and, to some degree, what our contribution can be and has been to the bottom line of this company,” said Mr. Peres.

Last year, Condé Nast’s decisions, inspired by a review from the consulting firm McKinsey, were ruthlessly practical: The magazines that made the money stayed, and the ones that didn’t folded. This is why a magazine like Bon Appetit, which may lack all the emotional capital that Gourmet had stockpiled, survived, and Ruth Reichl’s title did not.

Moreover, sources explained, executives at the company felt that it was critical to have two men’s magazines in the same house. Peter Hunsinger, the publisher of GQ, lobbied for Details’ continued existence last year, sources said. The logic went like this: Most of the advertisers in Details are ones that GQ has already. GQ doesn’t view Details as a rival, and, at least within the corridors of 4 Times Square, it doesn’t see Esquire as real competition right now, either. But if Details suddenly disappeared, where would those advertisers go? Well, they’d have plenty of reasons to take a hard look at Esquire. At the least, there would be extra money for advertisers to spread around in an increasingly smaller market. And then suddenly GQ could have an Elle vs. Vogue situation on its hands with Esquire—something it most certainly does not want, and Condé Nast doesn’t need.

“We are stronger together; we run the town,” said Mr. Hunsinger.

The other person responsible for Details’ continued life is Bill Wackermann, the influential publisher of Glamour, who convinced Si Newhouse and Chuck Townsend that he should have a chance to get his hands on the magazine. Details, he argued, isn’t a legacy title. GQ and Vanity Fair are magazines whose strength lies in their history. Details can be experimented with; it can feel fresh.

They listened and fired Details publisher Steven DeLuca and replaced him with Mr. Wackermann as publishing director.

“I haven’t been shy about my enthusiasm for this magazine,” said Mr. Wackermann.

Certainly, the magazine needed to get off to a quick start. Late last year, shortly after he got the job, Mr. Wackermann took Mr. Peres and some editorial and business staffers to the Greenwich Hotel and argued why there needed to be a 10th anniversary issue. It was a curious thing to some: Details is in its 28th year of publication, and even if you count its birth date after it was relaunched by Fairchild in 2000, then its anniversary is in the fall, not March.

“Bill wanted it and I understand why,” said Mr. Peres. “He wanted to pack a punch in the first half of that year.”

(The 10th anniversary issue ultimately had seven fewer ad pages than last year’s March issue; March issues are seen almost as important as September issues for fashion magazines.)

So where does Details turn next now that it has its lifeline? Mr. Wackermann has been trying to be bold on the business side, and Mr. Peres said the magazine would be slightly less gloomy—fewer stories on Should You have Children? or Why You Should Retire—but added, “Is the core DNA of this magazine changing? No.”

So for those in media circles who scratch their head trying to understand Details—Is it gay, or not? Why is there so much bathroom humor? What’s the point?—they’ll probably have more to say.

(In fact, here’s one of them! The magazine’s former fashion director, Michael Macko, who was laid off in October, said in an interview, “The Details reader loves fashion, but Details doesn’t love fashion. If Dan Peres is Details, Details resents fashion. It’s biting the hand that feeds it.” Mr. Peres responded by saying, “There’s a difference between respecting and appreciating fashion and being a fashion victim, clearly a distinction lost on some.”)

One thing is evident: Mr. Peres has no apologies.

“I’m not making a magazine for everyone,” said Mr. Peres. “We have a loyal readership, and they happen to be a desirable group and appealing to marketers. And not everyone is apart of that group. Why is this magazine here? Why is this magazine reporting on someone with Down syndrome who is trying to lose his virginity? It’s not for everyone.”

More: Sexton, Times Metro Editor, Stays Put >

jkoblin@observer.com

“We were always looking in, you know, watching this party happen,” he told The Observer. “Really attractive people would go in and drunk people would stumble out, and we’d just be watching it,” he said, turning around and plopping down onto a plush, tan chair in front of his desk. He was dressed in crisp jeans and a white-and-blue-striped button-down shirt.

“It’s nice to finally be at the party,” he said.

Mr. Peres was referring to the party known as, well, the Internet, to which Condé Nast has arrived not-so-fashionably late.

Last week, Details launched its own Web site, finally breaking off from its former online home at men.style.com, which the men’s monthly shared with brother publication GQ. The change had been planned since July, when Condé Nast Digital president Sarah Chubb announced that the men.style.com “destination site” would change into GQ.com. The company hopes that two separate Web sites might entice more high-end advertisers that are familiar with the print titles.

Men.style.com had been overseen by Condé Nast Digital, and magazine editors and writers were given strict publishing schedules for the site’s content. Staffers were only allowed to send new magazine content twice a month and were restricted to a certain number of photo slide shows, quizzes and additional features. There were no daily blogs, sparse commenting features and mostly faulty search functions. Worse, article URLs had mucky Web addresses, with a men.style.com slapped on them, which confused readers and bruised writers’ egos.

“It was a nice little science project we rigged up,” said Michael Hainey, GQ’s deputy editor, referring to his magazine’s former online home. He was in a conference room with GQ’s in-house multimedia editor, Andy Comer, and assistant Web editor, Andrew Richdale, who together run the just-launched GQ Web site. Mr. Hainey, in a camel-colored corduroy jacket and tailored jeans, offered a tour of GQ.com on a giant screen, pointing out two new blogs, online forums, how-to videos, podcasts and GQ’s City Guide feature with a grease pencil. He describes the new site to GQ staffers in a language they understand. “I call it a Mini Cooper: it’s nimble, it’s fast, it looks great,” he told The Observer.

“This is where a man begins—he searches for his life here,” he said.

But touting a Web site where writers can blog (wow!) and readers can comment back (gee whiz!) seems a little silly in 2009. Sure, both sites are gorgeous, with simple design and lots of potential, but the joke among Details staffers is that, even now that they finally have a functioning Web site, “it’s very 1999.” Mr. Hainey, for his part, figured GQ was slightly more advanced. “We’re very 2002 right now,” he told The Observer. 

Well here’s something a little more exciting: Last week, GQ also announced that the magazine will have a new iPhone app, available for $2.99 per issue, debuting with their crown jewel: the December “Men of the Year” edition. They expect it to be available in the iPhone app store the day the print publication hits newsstands, Nov. 18. (Though, with that price tag, why one wouldn’t just cough up two more dollars for the print edition and all its shiny photos is a bit of a mystery.)

Elsewhere at the Condé Nast Digital revolution: Wired is working with Adobe to get content on mobile screens besides the iPhone; The New Yorker is the most subscribed-to magazine on the Kindle; and Concierge.com (the online home of Traveler) just yesterday announced a new app that will allow users to turn vacation photographs into emailable postcards. Condé Nast Digital senior product manager Chris Gonzalez told The Observer that “tons of other apps” are in the works. “Every publication is asking, ‘When can you make one for my magazine?’” he said.

DESPITE THE SUCCESSES of sites like Wired.com and recipe resource Epicurious.com, Condé Nast has often been accused of forgoing quality Web sites to save glossy print titles. Fearing that the Internet would “cannibalize” print sales, Condé Nast built sites for most magazines that seemed more like teasers than destinations—they existed online simply so that readers might be enticed to click on the “subscribe” button to get the all the good print stuff. 

But in the post-McKinsey age, some Condé Nast executives are eager to mark the launches of Details.com and GQ.com as a glittering new beginning for the company, where attempting to make money off the Web will (finally) get its due focus in 2010.

Condé Nast Digital’s newly named publisher, Josh Stinchcomb, who was formerly in charge of ad sales as executive director of Condé Nast Digital Business Group, said more mobile apps, e-commerce and premium paid subscription models (like the one already adopted by Condé Nast Digital’s niche technology site Ars Technica) are on the way. He also said that along with a Golf Digest Web re-launch in January, two new Condé Nast sites will debut during the first half of the year. “There’s no reason for us to not experiment, and we’ll find the right approach,” he said.

Mr. Peres, for his part, is getting his Web legs by leaning on Paul Katz, Details.com’s new Web editor. “It’s actually really hard; I’m a magazine guy, we’re print people,” he admitted. “I have to learn a new language. I have to learn to say things in a smaller space, I have to say things on a daily basis, not a monthly basis. That’s why it’s good to bring on guys like Paul, who are Web-fluent. I’m more like a Web illegal.”

greagan@observer.com

The Details editor didn't offer too many, well, details, leading some to wonder if perhaps his magazine might be going the way of Condé Nast siblings Domino or Men's Vogue—after all, it was only one day after its competitor Best Life folded. Had some new calamity befallen 4 Times Square taking another glossy—and all those jobs—with it?

Hadn’t these j-schoolers suffered enough?

In fact, Mr. Peres did all he could to buoy the crowd’s spirit. He called a neighbor in Westchester an “asshole” after the man wondered aloud why anyone would pay j-school tuition. (See: Is It Time to Move to the Suburbs?) “We’ll be around a lot longer than his investment bank will,” said Mr. Peres.

Mr. Peres also talked about how blogs might kill newspapers, but they won’t kill magazines, and he claimed mobile devices like the Kindle pose “more of an immediate threat to book-publishing.” (See: The Playboys of Tech.)

Of particular interest to the students, Mr. Peres shared some of his own travails finding a job after he graduated NYU in 1993. After being rejected by nearly every media outlet in the city—including Details—Mr. Peres was hired by DNR (a November Condé Nast casualty) as—wait for it—Associate Knitwear Editor. “Sweaters, basically,” he deadpanned. “I covered sweaters.” (See Sweater Weather.)

He went on to describe his ascension to editor in chief of Details, at the age of 28, as the result of being in the right place at the right time. “Everyone in charge of giving me the job at Details made a really bizarre call,” he said. (See: Why You Should Be Networking.)

During his post-speech Q&A, several students questioned how the magazine treats homosexuality. (See: Does Everyone Think You're Gay?) Mr. Peres personally apologized for a 2004 “Gay or Asian” installment of the former “Gay or ____” feature which angered both gays and Asians. But the editor defended himself against charges that the magazine suffers from a latent homophobia, saying the magazine attacks stereotypes of all kinds, and that Details is for a particular type of reader who appreciates that approach. (See: I Said I'm Not Gay.)

“I don’t think we are making fun of gay men,” (see: Would You Really Be Okay With a Gay Baby?) said Mr. Peres. “And if we do, it’s no more or less than we make fun of straight men." (See: Is Straight the New Square?).

"Looking at cultural stereotypes in this country within the realm of masculinity is what we do, and it’s what we do well,” he continued. (See: Is Being Well Hung the Key to Happiness?)

Mr. Peres admitted it took him some time to adjust to the editor’s desk (See: You're The Boss, Not a Buddy), but he insisted Details has developed a distinct point of view since he replaced a carousel of editors that many felt had diluted the title. (See: Welcome to the Age of Self-Promotion.)

“We’re not a magazine for every guy. In fact, we’re not a magazine for most guys. It’s just a certain guy—both gay and straight—who is going to like what we do," he told the crowd (See: Mavericks). That narrow focus has made Details one of the smallest Condé Nast titles, but that does not seem to bother Mr. Peres. “I have the great fortune of working for a company and a man who is not all about scale... They’re still patient with us as a smaller title. And they’re nurturing us, and we’re healthy. I wouldn’t say robust, but we’re healthy.” (See: How Far Would You Go To Get Taller?)

So what was all this about a difficult day?

Late in his speech, Mr. Peres divulged what had disturbed him that afternoon. “I looked up on the wall where the papers get mini’ed… and I don’t really like the way the May issue is shaping up,” he told the crowd. (See: The Love Doctor.)

A May issue, you say? Shaping up? Sounds like the day could have gone much, much worse. (See: The New Status Guilt.)

Just when we weren’t looking, Details got all straight-acting on us. Surely editor-in-chief Dan Peres hasn’t exhausted Hollywood’s bottomless supply of fresh-faced actors. Or maybe he has.

On the cover of the book’s latest issue, which touts a “Power and Influence” theme, Britney Spears’ ex, Kevin Federline, isn’t photographed count-the-pores close or even slightly naked (perhaps in spite of the fact that he was shot by Steven Klein.) In fact, with K-Fed’s crossed, tattooed forearms and his what-up-dude glance, he looks nothing at all like his twinkishly-styled predecessors. (Ashton…Rhys Meyers…Beckham…Radcliffe…Anyone?) What’s more, the cagey lad-mag has gone and ranked him No. 7 on their list of 50 “power players.” Huh. The 29-year-old father of Ms. Spears’ two sons, Sean and Jayden, doesn’t give any good goss about the pop singer he once loved, but he doesn’t exactly leave readers crying ‘Gimme more,’ either. Mr. Federline does admit, however, that he can’t decide which animated character he likes more—SpongeBob SquarePants or Nemo (as in the fish one looks for).

Talking to US, Mr. Peres says, “Here is the person who people think of as this universal joke, who has oddly emerged as father of the year…The kids would go running to him and were very warm and very well behaved.”

In the letters section of the magazine’s December issue that hit newsstands Tuesday, Mr. Peres wrote in an editor’s note: “Our November issue’s cover interview with Ben Affleck quoted him as saying, ‘I’ve gone out and directed a movie and made it really fucking good,’ about his movie Gone Baby Gone. Affleck never made such a statement.”

The story was written by freelancer Bart Blasengame. But when a Details spokeswoman, Lisa Dallos, was asked whether Mr. Blasengame made the quote up, she told The Observer, “The comments were taken out of context. There was absolutely nothing that was fabricated.”

Those two statements appear to be at odds with each other: On the one hand, Mr. Affleck “never made such a statement,” and on the other hand nothing in the story was fabricated and the quote was taken out of context.

But Mr. Peres did not make a distinction between the two when The Observer tried to follow up, releasing this statement through a Condé Nast spokeswoman: “I stand by the correction that I published, and I stand by the statements made on behalf of me and Details.”

When asked to make sense of the contradiction—how, The Observer asked, could Mr. Peres stand by both the original correction and the subsequent statement that denied any fabrication?—the spokeswoman would not comment.

Shawn Sachs, a publicist for Ben Affleck, was more definitive. “Ben didn’t say that [quote],” Mr. Sachs told The Observer. “It’s completely made up. In having to pick a side, I pick Dan Peres and the magazine over what their spokesperson is trying to spin.”

When informed of Mr. Peres’ statement, Mr Sachs e-mailed: “The magazine apology said ‘Never made such a statement.’ … The Details publicist said ‘Taken out of context.’ … They sure don’t sound like the same thing.”

Mr. Peres, as of press time on Tuesday, continued to defend both statements.

The New York Post first reported the news of the correction on Tuesday, and quoted a spokesman for Details saying that Mr. Peres and Mr. Affleck are “good friends.”

When asked if Details would run a correction on their correction, the spokesperson wouldn’t comment. Mr. Blasengame did not return a message seeking comment.

Dan Peres, the editor-in-chief of Details magazine, wrote in an editor's note in the letters section in the December issue: "Our November issue's cover interview with Ben Affleck quoted him as saying, 'I've gone out and directed a movie and made it really fucking good,' about his movie Gone Baby Gone. Affleck never made such a statement."

But according to a spokeswoman for Details, the quote in the story—written by freelancer Bart Blasengame—was actually accurate. "The comments were taken out of context," said Lisa Dallos, a spokeswoman for Details. "There was absolutely nothing that was fabricated."

In that case, it would be Mr. Peres who was inaccurate.

An assistant for Mr. Peres said he was in meetings all day Tuesday. Ms. Dallos said he was not available for comment. The New York Post reported the news first on Tuesday and quoted a spokesman for Details saying that Mr. Peres and Mr. Affleck are "good friends."

When asked if Details would run a correction of their correction, the spokesperson wouldn't comment. Mr. Blasengame did not yet return a message seeking comment.