For years it seemed like Si Newhouse and Condé Nast were hiding out and hoping that the whole internet thing would just run its course and life would return to “normal.” Sure they formed CondéNet and launched Style.com but they were certainly not pre-curve on anything digital.
But over the past few months, they’ve definitely been trying to make up for lost time. (We can only imagine the pages of the McKinsey reports that must have been dedicated to online growth.) From finally getting each of their magazines its own proper website to online dating (still super weird!), they are making a serious go of it.
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the publishing house is developing an e-reader application that will debut sometime next year first with Wired and then the other titles like Vogue and Vanity Fair. Apparently this is different from the GQ technology they just put on iTunes.
We have yet to sign on to the whole e-reader thing. But it’s really nice to see Condé trying to get out ahead of things instead of hanging back and watching the world change while it stands still. Because we all know how that worked out, and no one wants to see it happen again.
Still Going Strong: Indochine celebrated its new book earlier in the week after twenty-five years in business. Give us vintage Kate and Christy any day. {TheMoment}
Oh, Louie Louie: Lara may be fronting the actual spring/summer campaign for Louis Vuitton, but Daisy Lowe’s secured a spot in their “beach-wear lookbook,” whatever that means. She shoots in Miami this weekend. {Grazia}
Get Your Cavalli On: Isabeli Fontana just shot Roberto Cavalli’s spring/summer campaign with Carolyn Murphy. The first makes perfect sense, the second’s still confusing. {Fashionologie}
Catch This Wave: After spending last week in Costa Rica, I still refuse to wear a coat in New York. Thankfully, Vogue’s avoiding reality with me. This week’s Most Wanted appeals to your inner surfer girl. {Vogue}
Yesterday, Jared, as in Just, posted about the latest starlet to wear Prabal Gurung on the red carpet, Leighton Meester.
There’s something in there about rosettes and something about singing and even something about American Eagle Outfitters, but we can’t really get past the part where she’s out and about with Vogue’s Entertainment Editor Jillian Demling.
Leighton’s boyfriend, Carter Baizen, was also present, but she was with Jillian enough to get them written up as a threesome on gossip blogs which means they’re
a) New best friends.
b) Conducting interviews through a week’s worth of parties.
Forget the latest phone technology or Prada pumps, Anna Wintour got politics for her birthday yesterday.
American Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief was named to President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She’s joined by a handful of ‘private’ citizens including Sarah Jessica Parker, Edward Norton, architect Thom Mayne and former New York City Ballet dancer Damian Woetzel.
The committee, which works with both the National Endowment for the Arts and for the Humanities, works to achieve “economic revitalization through the arts” and guarantee the arts don’t become an afterthought in America.
We love Anna and we love the arts and we hope time in Washington (if this involves time in Washington) inspires her to get a bit more creative in New York.
Vogue.TV just launched their new series, 60 Seconds to Chic.
It’s hosted by Louise Roe, who used to host videos for Vogue UK before moving to America and trying, maybe, to follow in Cat Deeley’s footsteps.
This first episode features winter boots (in fact, it’s almost like a commercial for Sorrel), but styled for different winter occasions including a night out. Louise, who’s credited as a Vogue.TV ‘stylist’ pairs short furry galoshes with a black mini-dress and sequin jacket which sounds cozy, but awkward, kind of like when I wore galoshes with a dress on fashion’s night out and then it didn’t rain. Would you actually wear winter boots to dinner with your cocktail dress? Even if Vogue says it’s ok?
Autumn Bottom: Whether fall makes you think of fashion or of crunchy leaves, both visions probably come in the same color palette. Hillary and Katherine take layering to the max in their fall fashion editorial. {WWW}
On the Job: Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, former director of special events for Vogue, just landed a new position. She’ll be the director of Fashion Week for Lincoln Center when it moves in September 2010, “consulting on internal and external coordination between Lincoln Center and the fashion industry.” But the question is, who can she steal back from MAC? {FWD}
Still Haunting: Alison Sarofim’s Halloween party brings out fashion’s best and brightest. This year’s theme was downtown New York circa 1980’s; Marc and Lorenzo were dutifully costumed while Valentino opted for a spot-on Valentino look. {VanityFair}
Joy to Your Feet: Loeffler Randall’s resort collection just landed on their website this morning. Jessie Randall found inspiration in the children’s book Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni and you can also find the booties from Costello’s show. {LoefflerRandall}
John Galliano let slip that Karlie Kloss is his girl for Spring 2010.
She won’t front Galliano (whose ads never appear stateside), but Dior. The designer launched his eponymous “timepiece range” in Paris last night and told WWD he’d been very busy casting the spring campaign.
But really, how hard can it be to cast the girl who’s cast in everything?
This season, Karlie’s in ads for Chloé, Uniqlo, Marc Jacobs’ Lola, Lacoste, Pringle of Scotland and Sportmax. She’s also holding down editorials in almost every single magazine, including a grand total of four in this month’s Vogue alone. So Dior’s probably just the start of her spring rounds which makes one wonder a) when she goes to school and b) how it’s possible to be over a girl before she’s eighteen.
Confession: I haven’t read a full article in American Vogue in a very, very long time.
This weekend, I stopped in the street - seriously - to read Hamish Bowles’ story about three days spent in Utah’s desert. It feels like almost every issue of Vogue has a green bent at this point, and for November, a handful of writers scattered around the country, or the five boroughs in Sally Singer’s case, to explore nature.
Hamish enrolled in an adventure course at the Boulder Outdoor Survivor School in Southern Utah, headed to Paragon Sports to pick through “synthetic balaclavas” and “a brace of cotton bandanas in lilac and purple” which “promised a style continuum with [his] urban world,” before Anna subtly demanded, “You can do it.”
Then off he went to scale baby mountains, wade through rivers, sleep in tents and eat bear poop (sort of) without even the comfort of his Barbour jacket. The piece is so brilliantly written that even if you’ve given up on Anna’s Vogue, you must read it. (Which, I’ve just learned, you can do here; but for Condé’s sake, it’d be nice to buy it!)
If you see anyone from Condé Nast today, make sure and give them a hug, or at least a pat on the back.
It feels like the publishing house, home to Vogue, W, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Lucky, has been suffering through layoffs and cutbacks for ages. Two weeks ago they cut dozens of employees on the business side, but this week, they’ve begun their editorial liquidation.
Yesterday came word they let almost twelve Glamour editors go including Deputy Editors Ellen Seidman and Maryellen Gordon, both of whom been with the magazine for over ten years. Today, WWD announces that both Executive Fashion Editor Candy Pratts Price and Contributor Laird Borrelli-Persson will leave Style.com.
We had to read the sentence about four times to really believe it. Candy, who got her start at Vogue in the 80’s, is the kind of the core of Style.com. When her contract’s up in 2010 we’ll be out daily doses of her creative humor, CandyCasts and brilliant eye. WWD mentions that she’ll devote more time to Vogue, but given the state of things that might not be the best backup plan.
Please, please tell us this is not true. Ashlee Simpson-Wentz in Vogue? No. Just no. There is so much talent in young Hollywood that Vogue has yet to include. On the plus side, Abby has definitively decided she will be dressing as Ash (already a front-runner) for her “Dress as Your Most Loathed Celebrity”-themed Halloween/Birthday party.
“Geez”, muttered a friend Wednesday night. We’re standing in a jam packed club - not even a famous one - heaving with human traffic and queueing for £14 drinks. “What recession?”
Indeed what recession — it’s certainly not in London. After a manic LFW, one would expect everything to calm down for a moment, for the money and champagne to stop flowing. Instead, we’ve experienced a pent up demand to party - and wear the clothes \ we so innocently bought during fashion month.
The action’s hot and heavy: this week alone saw the bash celebrating the Juicy Couture store opening (which shares a block with Matthew Williamson & Stella’s store), the Tatler 300th anniversary party and the Vogue/Bulgari party. Last night, Alasdhair Willis (Stella’s husband), threw an intimate do at his Duke Street gallery, while Cindy Crawford launched her Omega collection at the Almada club (where Anna Wintour made her LFW date with Chris Kane). The latter drew the most stars yet including Lily Allen, Rosie Huntingdon Whiteley and Jasmine Guinness whilst Rhys Ifan flirted outrageously with model du jour, Tolula Adeyemi.
In Vogue’s April issue, Sally Singer hung out with Zoe Kravitz and Olivia Thirlby while they searched high and low for clog boots.
Though no one, from Alex Wang to Opening Ceremony knew what she was talking about, Olivia insisted, “I’m bringing back the clog.”
To which we thought, “No thank you.”
And then of course they stomped their way down Chanel’s runway and forced us to think about them again. So here we are a couple of weeks later, split down the middle. Last night over post-party pizza I told Faran I’d never ever wear clogs. Ever. She gave them a resounding, “Hell yes.” (Though she’s had this debate before.)
Intern Alyssa says no, “They’re ugly and unflattering. Maybe a step up from Crocs,” and intern Kate agrees, “When I was little I had them in lots of different colors to match my outfits. But my mom dressed me, so I had no free will.”
When we saw November’s disastrous Vogue cover, we just assumed the women were too busy to get together in one place to shoot the image.
We figured Nicole Kidman was on a beach in Australia, Marion in the South of France, Kate in Malibu etc., or maybe in a studio and then superimposed onto the waves. But then we watched this video of them dragging their couture through the ocean and walking on sand in Christian Louboutins and realized that no, they were in fact all in one place.
Which means, just to clarify, that despite the hundreds of gorgeous pictures Annie took of the group, someone still felt the need to butcher it on a computer. (Also, for the record, our favorite part is when Annie says they took a “huge risk” shooting at the beach.)
On the upside, it looks like they had a blast.
Right On: Tabitha Simmons styled a great mini-shoot with the 2009 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists. There are actors (Sebastian Stan), there are models (Lily Donaldson), there are designers (Patrick Ervell) and there are really great clothes. {Vogue}
Best Dressed: Nora & Delia Ephron talk about their new Broadway play, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, which they adapted from Ilene Beckerman’s book. They reflect on Saks, I. Magnin, Audrey Hepburn and the magic of the perfect outfit. {Glamour}
Sex Sells: We’d kind of forgotten about the Sex and the City sequel, but now Penelope Cruz is in it and we’re suddenly really interested. Whoever dressed in her in that head-to-toe Rick Owens look the other night could give Pat a run for her money. {Grazia}
WTF: Pamela Anderson apparently used a random nine-year-old girl to hold up her train all night at an awards show. Um, and referred to her as her “daughter” and made her sit at her feet? Well, that’s the weirdest part of the day so far. Other than the fact that I was on the Fox News site. {FoxNews}
This picture landed in my inbox because of the Bally bag Kate Hudson’s holding - which is cute - but I’m writing about it because of the kid.
It’s from the set of a shoot for Harper’s Bazaar (I swear we’re not trying to belabor our Bazaar feelings; it just keeps coming up) in which she’s modeling not just the latest fashion, but also her five-year-old son, Ryder.
The kid looks adorable, but it’s jarring to see him voluntarily put in front of the camera when so many people - famous people - complain about media attention toward their children. It’s something we touched on last year when Natalia Vodianova dragged her entire clan into the pages of Vogue and something we thought about again when Angela Lindvall posed with her kids in British Vogue and then gave her son a starring role in her Gap ad.
Is it okay because it’s a controlled environment, unlike the paparazzi on the sidewalk? Because they’re still kids either way, and they’re not the ones choosing to model, their parents just happen to be really, really pretty. Are we nuts? Or would you, too, prefer your fashion editorials without a side of child?
Today could end up being a very big day at Condé Nast. And likely not in good way. I fear that as I type, there may be a slew of people getting their pink slips. But one headline I really wasn’t expecting to see this morning was that the company was launching a dating site.
What the what? According to Vogue UK, Condé Nast International has launched TrulyMadlyDating.com and it’s linked in to Glamour, GQ, and even Vogue’s websites. (There’s an option on the profile sign up that names them as partner sites.)
The article states that the site is meant to “unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven.” I have a ton of friends in and out of the fashion and magazine business who have had tremendous success with internet dating. But I’m sorry, our industry is really the last place I’m looking to for set-ups. I love the mix of people that I get to work with, but c’mon I don’t really think of it as the go-to place for straight men, not that those are the only pairings that the site can offer up…just the ones I would be in the market for.
Also, really Condé? This is how you’re diving into the internet business in a big way? I simply don’t understand this use of resources or what on earth it has to do with your core business. If someone else can explain it to me, please do.
But I’ve been clicking on Vogue.com more and more lately, in part because I’m anxiously awaiting obvious changes and excited for Condé Nast to really truly enter the digital age (I’d never actually say that out loud), but also because it lets you see a totally different side of Vogue’s editors.
Hamish has his sphere and Candy has her cast, but some features, like Meredith Melling Burke’s Most Wanted, feature a rotating cast of Vogue-ettes listing their current favorite things.
Sometimes there’s a theme, like Devon Schuster’s wedding or Jane Aldridge’s shoes and sometimes there’s not. Like this week’s list, from features associate Stephanie LaCava, is basically because she has ridiculously great style. She’s mixed Proenza shorts with Topshop boots and a Band of Outsiders toggle coat; it’s fun to see the thought process behind style we consistently admire.
Surprisingly, Vogue.com’s the best place to go if you ever forget that even the most major fashion people have a sense of humor.
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For years it seemed like Si Newhouse and Condé Nast were hiding out and hoping that the whole internet thing would just run its course and life would return to “normal.” Sure they formed CondéNet and launched Style.com but they were certainly not pre-curve on anything digital. 
