Behold, the much-awaited revamped Vanity Fair website, latest in a star-studded rollout of Conde Nast magazine sites finally catching up to the internet age. This past summer VF brought on Andrew Hearst as web editor (scoring ace content as well as online savvy), and the resulting site is clean, easily navigable and distinctly Vanity Fair, with nav bar categories like "Politics & Power" and "Entertainment & Culture" both which are pointedly separate and distinct from "Fame & Scandal" (the Clooney cover story, however, is categorized under the latter - zing!). The VF sensibiltiy is also apparent in the use of evocative one-word slugs for different features - "Bling" for one on Jacob The Jeweler, "Pillage" to denote Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the unsurprising but just as typically VF "Starlet" for outtakes from Rachel Bilson's photo shoot,wherein she appears surprisingly clothed. The site also features content from issues past, both recent (Christopher Hitchens on blowjobs, in case you missed it the first time or just want to lie back and receive the turgid imagery) and 'classic' (mostly recent classics, like last year's Deep Throat scoop, an Eliot Spitzer profile from January 2005). And, of course, you want Suri photos? They got Suri photos!
Note that this is just the first day of a soft launch; Hearst promises that there will be "lots and lots of original material" coming soon. "This is really primarily a major redesign," says Hearst, promising impending RSS feeds plus blogs "probably within a few weeks" (no word yet on who will be blogging besides James Wolcott, whose blog for now enjoys links from all over the site). Hearst will have help in taking the site to the next level starting on October 30th with the arrival of ex-Gawkeress Jessica Coen, who will lend her tart wit to the site as deputy online editor. Until then the site still boasts quite a bit of material — at the end of each feature there are auto-generated links from the archives which are mostly recent but do include material from the past half-decade or so (Hearst says they will be excavating material from the more distant past as well, and look for writer-specific archives upcoming too. All the Hitch that's fit to print!).
Also, stargazers: If you subscribe to VF right now you could win two tickets to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party! Plaid pants not included.
