By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 3/13 8:16am

Magazines

Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour Gets Promoted to a Position Created Just for Her

Anna Wintour will add the newly created role of artistic director of Condé Nast to her existing duties as Vogue editor and editorial director of Teen Vogue, the Times reports.  The position was created in part to keep Ms. Wintour at Condé Nast, and should put an end the persistent (and persistently debunked) speculation that the Obama-supporting editrix could decamp for a plum ambassador gig. Condé is expected to make the announcement today.  Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 1/15 6:57pm

off the record

Photo credit: Vogue.

Heavy Lifting: Dara-Lynn Weiss’s Memoir Hits Shelves

Remember when Dara-Lynn Weiss wrote about putting her overweight 7-year-old daughter, Bea, on a diet in last April’s issue of Vogue? In the event that you do not, Ms. Weiss provides a handy refresher in her new book The Heavy, which hits shelves this week. “All hell broke loose when the Vogue article came out,” Ms. Weiss writes. “From the reaction in the blogosphere, you would have thought that I maimed my daughter.”

Ms. Weiss thought that the article would generate a little mommy-blog buzz, but of course, Vogue has a slightly wider reach than that. And in this case, the punishment was not just the ire of the Internet, but also a swift book deal with Ballantine. Now, just 10 months later, The Heavy is here in hardcover. Read More

By Jenna Sauers 11/27/12 8:36pm

books

Grace Coddington with Anna Wintour.

Out of Vogue: Grace Coddington’s Meandering Memoir Ditches Fashion Mags for an Army of Ex-Husbands, Cats

Although long familiar and widely revered in fashion-industry circles, Grace Coddington, the creative director of Vogue, burst into the wider public consciousness as the cussing, henna-haired breakout star of The September Issue, the 2009 R.J. Cutler documentary about the production of the Sept. 2007 issue of American Vogue. An 840-page monument to pre-recessionary tastes that included a Roman travel diary in which Sienna Miller wore a lot of feathers and a Dolce & Gabbana dress that cost $61,000, it was at the time the largest monthly issue of any American magazine ever published. (The Sept. 2012 Vogue finally eclipsed it in overall page count—but in its number of advertising pages, it has never been surpassed.) The movie made much of the relationship between Ms. Coddington and Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Ms. Wintour is chilly and superior—one of the documentary’s most entertaining moments comes when a startled assistant jumps out of her way like a vole before an owl—while Ms. Coddington is warm and generous to peers and underlings alike. Colleagues shrink and wither under Ms. Wintour’s judgments, but Ms. Coddington challenges the boss like an equal.

After the film came out, Ms. Coddington writes in her new memoir, Grace (Random House, 416 pp., $35), she started getting recognized on the street. Her newfound popular appeal was judged to be such that Random House paid a reported $1.2 million to acquire the memoir. But was this acclaim earned? It is no great task to seem warm-hearted next to Anna Wintour, and the creative director is hardly bold. In one sequence in the film that is, in retrospect, a bit of a reach, the camera lingers as Ms. Coddington surveys the palace of Versailles while sharing insights like, “It’s sort of strange to think how old it is.” Let that $1.2 million sink in. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/07/12 2:11pm

recovery mode

Don't forget all the blood donors. (Mayors Office)

Lloyd Blankfein, Big Real Estate, Diane Von Furstenberg, Vogue Among Major Sandy Donors

Mayor Bloomberg just announced that more than 10,000 people have donated more than $32 million to the Mayor’s Fund for New York City to help with recovery efforts. There are some interesting, if unsurprising names on the list. Big Real Estate—the Rudins, the Speyers, Brookfield Properties, the Related Companies, Glenwood Management among them—were big backers, even as many of their buildings were buffeted by the storm.Lloyd Blankfein made the list, as an individual, as did his firm Goldman Sachs, which is may be smart given the ire directed at Mr. Blankfein for keeping the lights on at Goldman HQ while power was out everywhere else downtown.

There are plenty of other Wall Street outfits, like Barclays, Evercore Partners, Julian Robertson, Stan Druckenmiller and New York Life. Diane Von Ferstenberg, Ralph Lauren, the CFDA, Sketchers and Vogue all donated money (maybe some warm fur coats, too?) as did casino kingpin Steve Wynn, Ron Perelman, the Giants (but no Jets), News Corp., Microsoft, and more. You can see all the cash donors, as well as the companies, like Walmart, Pepsico, North Face, Hunter Boots, JetBlue, Sullivan Street Bakery and Jamba Juice. Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 10/18/12 2:17pm

Magazines

Anna Wintour and Sally Singer: together again.

Sally Singer, Back in Vogue

Sally Singer is heading back to Vogue in the newly created role of digital creative director, The Fix reports.

Ms. Singer left Condé Nast, where she was Vogue’s fashion news and features director,  in 2010 to become the editor in chief of T. But her two-year stint at the Times came to an abrupt end this past in August. WSJ. Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 10/11/12 2:22pm

Magazines

Carine Roitfeld and Anna Wintour in friendlier times.

Carine Roitfeld Heads to Hearst

Hearst Magazines has named Carine Roitfeld  the global fashion director for Harper’s Bazaar.  This move ramps up the rivalry between the former editrix of French Vogue and Condé Nast. Ms. Roitfeld, who was once seen as a possible successor to Anna Wintour, abruptly left Condé Nast in 2010.

Ms. Roitfeld introduced her new magazine, CR Fashion Book, just Read More

By Drew Grant 9/11/12 2:43pm

Photography

9 Photos

Piel on the set of a 'Vogue' shoot

Model Behavior: Denis Piel Has a Way With Women

You are looking at a photo of a man in a coffee shop. He is wearing a straw hat, frayed around the edges. His hair is white underneath, and long. His hand is grasping a coffee cup, but he is not looking at it. He is looking at someone out of frame, making a gesture with his free hand: fingers extended, palm pointed slightly diagonal and down. The universal sign for “This is the important part.” In mid-gesture, he is animated. He does not seem to know he is being photographed.

This is how Denis Piel might have posed the scene of himself being interviewed about his latest book, Moments. The photographer with the flair for the cinematic is set to release a coffee table collection later this month with Rizzoli. Moments is a series of images, mainly of models and actresses, that Mr. Piel shot on the set of various advertising and editorial campaigns during his tenure in the ’80s as of one the magazine world’s Big Names. Read More