Conde Nast on The Huffington Post

Time Inc. Unites Conde Nast, Hearst To Tackle Digital Media In New Company

2009-11-24T07:58:47Z

Some of the magazine industry's biggest names are on the verge of forming a new company that would allow them to take the digital future into their own hands.

The company would make up one of the biggest alliances among rival publishers ever formed in print media, with Time Inc., Condé Nast and Hearst all expected to join, houses that together publish more than 50 magazines, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Vogue Hires Blue State Digital To Plan Paywall, Boost Sales

2009-11-23T08:54:42Z

Vogue has hired Blue State Digital to help analyze the Conde Nast publication's audience as part of a broader, revenue-generating push that ultimately will involve implementing paid subscriptions on Vogue.com, said Tom Florio, publishing director for Vogue and several other Conde Nast magazines.

Katya Wachtel: Morgan Stanley CEO Calls for More Regulation of Wall Street at Vanity Fair -Bloomberg Event

2009-11-18T22:22:56Z

At a Vanity Fair and Bloomberg event in Manhattan on Wednesday night, audience members were delighted by an impromptu ( and slightly coerced) appearance by Morgan Stanley CEO, John Mack, who called for far more stringent policing of Wall Street.

Mack, sitting inconspicuously amongst a crowd of business journos and financiers, was cheekily ambushed by Bloomberg's Margaret Brennan during the 'additional questions' portion of the evening, after a stellar panel of business reporters (and one historian) speculated on the causes of the financial crisis and analyzed how governmental and news institutions have handled the event.

After a quasi-joke that he was hiding from the camera, Mack grudgingly stood up and answered questions from Brennan and the panel. Mack, who will step down as CEO of Morgan Stanley next January, thought press coverage of the crisis had been, "overall, fair," and honed in on the urgent need for greater regulation of the finance industry.

"Regulators have to be much more involved," Mack said. "We cannot control ourselves -- [regulators] have to step in and control the Street." He added that some positive changes have been made, pointing to the fact that in the halls of Morgan Stanley, ten or fifteen federal regulators now roam daily.

"I love it," Mack said. "It forces firms to invest in risk management."

The 'Covering the Crisis' panel consisted of Vanity Fair's Bryan Burrough (formerly an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal), Niall Ferguson (a professor of history and business at Harvard and contributing editor for the Financial Times), Bethany McLean (a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the reporter often credited with having brought down Enron) and Andrew Ross Sorkin (the NYT's chief mergers and acquisitions reporter and columnist). The discussion was moderated by a pithy and tongue-in-cheek Michael Lewis, who left Portfolio in February to join the ranks of Graydon Carter's mag (the man at the helm of Vanity Fair was in attendance, as was the Bloomberg group's multimedia CEO, Andrew Lack).

Some highlights from the conversation...

Lewis: Should Lehman have been allowed to fall? Sorkin ummed and ahhed and then said yes; Ferguson said no; so did Burrough: "Lehman was losable. They were isolatable. You could put them on an island. If you had lost AIG, I'm not sure it was isolatable."

Lewis: What caused the crisis? Sorkin said deregulation, monetary policy and leverage; McLean blamed the political emphasis and encouragement of universal homeownership; Ferguson listed all the above and then proclaimed that we have all missed one important factor: China.

Brennan to Mack on media coverage of Morgan Stanley and the crisis in general: Mack described the coverage as generally fair, but then declared that coverage of the Stanley/Mitsubishi deal was "bullshit."

Brennan (host of cable TV news show, InBusiness): Did cable news coverage affect the crisis? Sorkin said it may have upped the panic ante, because even neutral, realistic reflection of the panic reverberates and thus intensifies alarm; Burrough was more condemnatory: " TV journos have too much time to fill. Your job is not to reflect passions, it's to report facts"; Ferguson argued that major financial meltdowns happened long before cable news.

Lewis to Sorkin: Is there anything you didn't uncover in your book? (Sorkin's new book, Too Big to Fail, looks at the collapse and bailout of Wall Street. Lewis had implied earlier in the evening that Sorkin's source list and the information he extrapolated during the reportage, was quite impressive): Sorkin said he wished he had access to the confidential notes taken during that 5 hour meeting on what to do about AIG, on that fateful Tuesday last September...

To watch a replay of 'Covering the Crisis,' visit Vanity Fair.com

Conde Nast To Publish Digital Version Of Wired For Apple Tablet

2009-11-18T17:50:57Z

Here's yet another content creator convinced that Apple has a tablet device in the works: Condé Nast says it will have a digital version of Wired magazine ready for the rumored gadget by the middle of next year and will eventually create similar versions for all of its 18 titles.

Karin Tanabe: Magazines, Magazines, Oh Where Have You Gone?

2009-11-18T10:21:11Z

First Playgirl, published since 1973 (c'mon ladies, support a good cause!), got the ax. Then CosmoGirl, Men's Vogue, Domino, Hallmark Magazine, Portfolio, Vibe, Southern Accents, Cookie, Gourmet, and, most recently, Metropolitan Home. No naked men, no southern chintz, and no minimalist interiors so white and clean that you never dare drink red wine again? What happened to my tomes of aspirational living? These 100+ glossy pages that appeared magically in my mailbox bearing gifts of oiled-up men wearing nothing but a smile, must-know stock tips, and recipes for "so simple even a child could make it!" pumpkin pie, have been ripped from my hands by a lack of readership and advertising dollars.

It's a tough time to be working in the magazine industry. As managing editor of a luxury lifestyle rag, I've felt the burn too. Everyone loves the internet! Including me, of course. I don't need Playgirl to satiate my desires -- there is enough porn online to fulfill the needs of a battalion of perverts. There are also enough decorating blogs to inspire you to redo your interiors every minute, and finance tips for the mathematically-challenged galore. But sometimes don't you want to dog-ear a page or have a seasoned editor weed through oodles of information for you?

At the rate we're going in the magazine industry, I wonder if the glossies will follow the way of newspapers -- killing off the fluff like travel and book reviews, sharing content across titles, and small magazines going under while the mighty stay afloat. For those of us who love to throw an industry-specific magazine about golfing through Greenland in our suitcase, it's been a tough year.

Yes, the web is an exciting platform for magazines, as are iPhones, Kindles, and all the other whirling electronic devices we tape to our hands. But Vogue on a Blackberry is not Vogue the magazine. Advertising dollars and subscription and newsstand profits don't fuel an online publication. Lumped together, major magazines take in a total of around $20 billion a year, but a very small slice of those profits come from the web. Publishers need the magazine to be lucrative to keep the website afloat.

The New Yorker, Bazaar, Lucky, Elle Décor and a slew of other magazines still make it into my hands week after week and month after month. But I'm worried that even the popular kids are getting depressed, looking rather anorexic and desperately in need of a holiday binge.

Will 2010 bring even less titles and shrinking piles of pages for me to flip through? Oh, probably. So I'll just take a moment to pay my respects to the ones we lost this year.

IN MEMORIAM

Metropolitan Home/Hachette Filipacchi
1981 - December 2009

Gourmet/Conde Nast
1941 - November 2009

Cookie/Conde Nast
2005 - November 2009

Southern Accents/Time Inc.
1977 - September/October 2009

Vibe/Wicks Group
1992 - June 2009

Best Life/Rodale
2004 - May 2009

Portfolio/Conde Nast Publications
May, 2007 - April 2009

Blender/Alpha Media
2001 - April 2009

Travel & Leisure Golf/American Express Publishing
March 1998 - March/April 2009

Domino/Conde Nast
April 2005 - March 2009

Wondertime/Walt Disney Publishing
2006 - March 2009

Country Home/Meredith Corp.
1986 - March 2009

Hallmark Magazine/Hallmark Cards
September/October 2006 - February/March 2009

PC Magazine/ Ziff Davis
1982 - January 2009

Electronic Gaming Monthly/Ziff Davis Media
1989 - January 2009

Men's Vogue / Conde Nast
2005 - December 2008/January 2009

02138/ Manhattan Media
2006 - December 2008/January 2009

Plenty
2004 - December/January 2009

Teen/Hearst Magazines
1954 - Winter 2008/9

Catie Lazarus: Top 10 Reasons This Woman Can't Write for Late Night Comedy Shows

2009-11-12T20:07:00Z

In the New York Times, Bill Carter writes ,"very few women make it inside the writing rooms for late-night television hosts, despite that women make up a larger proportion of their audience than men. There are no female writers on the new “The Jay Leno Show,” none on “Late Show with David Letterman,” none on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.”"

Based on his article and Nell Scovell's personal account in Vanity Fair, I have come to understand why the odds are stacked against my wedging my paw in the door. I still have hope (also known as delusion).

The Top 10 Reasons This Woman Can't Write for Late Night Comedy Variety Shows

10) I will be overcome by desire for my male comedy writing peers
and superiors, who are known for their off-white, pasty skin and muscle tonus
minimus, akin to albino, soft shell turtles.

9) My lady sensibility is limited to menstruation
(hilarious), babies (adorable), and unicorns mating
(adorably hilarious).

8) Due to my genetic make-up, I am physically incapable to
handle the job, considering the heavy manual labor required in touch typing.

7) The number one rule of comedy is fitting in and I sometimes buck the uniform of orthopedic New Balance sneakers,
hoodies, jeans, and t-shirts, with ironic catchphrases like, "Pro-Cashmere. Pro-Cotton.
Pro-Choice."

6) The only requests I get as
a female comedy writer are to discuss sexism in comedy, instead of political satire about how Sarah Palin is so sick she
gives swine flu or scripts like Crones:
The Musical! or commercials, maybe, Femedy: A bubble gum
birth control for tweens who don't want to ovulate. Period.

5) Late-night comedy requires a male point-of-view, and girls,
even ones closer to menopause than teething, can only express themselves in
glittery pink (which, fyi, typing in does
not fund cancer research).

4) As a lady, I automatically cost less, and in a business where money talks, how will I be taken seriously? I mean funnily.

3) I didn't graduate from Harvard so I lack the cultural capital to craft the erudite, intellectual fodder
typical of late-night comedies, like the masturbating bear or gift
wrapped genitalia.

2) Hollywood would have to make major changes to catch up with
medicine, law, even engineering, in its hiring practices, and we all know how open television is to change. It only took 30 years (and millions of dollars) before CNN let Native
American Lou Dobbs quit. (I mean, leave to spend time with his family.)

1) I'd have to be funny and learn
how to play Dungeons and Dragons.

Anne Hill: Two Dreams That Changed Hollywood

2009-11-11T18:37:22Z

Big dreams still come when we are at the top of our game, but sometimes the most influential ones come to us on the way up.

If you read closely the profiles of those at the top, chances are you will find the moment when everything changed for them -- and chances are that moment came in a dream. In The New Yorker last month, director James Cameron tells about being sick and broke, staying in a tiny flat at a time of struggle early in his career.

One night, he said, he dreamed of "a chrome skeleton emerging out of a fire." Then he sketched the figure cut in half and crawling after a woman. He said, "I thought, That was cool. I've never seen that in a movie before."

Unlike most of us, who might have a startling dream image and never do anything with it, Cameron enlisted a couple friends to help him create a movie script based on that image of a metallic death-figure rising like a phoenix from the flames. The result, three years later, was The Terminator, a movie that changed the game not just for James Cameron, but for Hollywood storytelling itself.

Producer Jerry Weintraub would not be the mogul he is if he hadn't followed a crazy dream in his mid-twenties that began his meteoric rise. As told in Vanity Fair last year,

One night in a dream, Jerry saw a marquee lit against a black sky and on it, in dazzling letters: JERRY WEINTRAUB PRESENTS ELVIS AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN. The next morning, Jerry called RCA Records and was told to contact the Colonel -- Tom Parker, one of the most vilified men in show-business history...

Far from being cowed by the Colonel's reputation, Weintraub called him every day for months until he finally answered. It took still more time for Weintraub to convince the Colonel to go along with his wild plan to get Elvis back on the road. But with persistence his dream came true -- and after Elvis's success followed Frank Sinatra's, and a host of other big acts (not to mention movies) that Jerry Weintraub made huge.

Not all of us are destined to end up on stage thanking the Academy, but we all have wild dreams that can produce game-changing results. The entertainment industry is struggling today, but in a way that is the best news possible. Who knows how many talented people tonight will have the next big dream that could change the stories we tell, and how we tell them?

One thing is certain: the only dream that has a chance in the world is the one that someone is brave enough, and maybe desperate enough, to follow.

Conde Nast Ad Pages PLUMMET 31.6% In 2009

2009-11-11T16:28:00Z

Conde Nast's ad-page numbers are in, and they explain why the company has had such a rough 2009.

The company lost 8,359 ad pages at its monthly magazines, according to estimates it released Wednesday. That is a 31.6 percent drop from last year.

Dr. Susan Corso: A Challenge to Magazine Publishers -- Especially Jon Meacham

2009-11-10T17:48:51Z

This past week's Newsweek with Al Gore on the cover was illuminating. Consider this: 20% of CO2 is attributable to deforestation--more than all of the world's cars and trucks combined.

If this is true, and I have no reason to believe it isn't, why aren't all magazine publishers rushing to eliminate blow-in inserts in their publications? You know what I mean, right? Those pesky little cards that fall out and are so irksome.

Think of the deforestation it could prevent! Newsweek has already risen to this challenge, and for that, I commend Jon Meacham and his team. There are no longer blow-in inserts in Newsweek.

Of course, I don't read every magazine that's published, but I happen to know that Vanity Fair and Guideposts--two more different publications don't exist--are egregious offenders. Why? The naive answer is that blow-in inserts must work to grow their subscription bases. To that I ask, so?

With all the lamentation over how the Internet is changing print publishing, why aren't more publishers tearing to update their old systems? Old habits die hard? Sure, but again, so? It's time to do something different.

How about these ideas?

Give subscribers the option to renew electronically. (Some of us like our hard copies.)

Let subscribers choose the lengths of their renewals up to five years at a time. (Guideposts, bless them, is already doing this.)

Ban blow-in inserts completely.

If all the print publications in the U.S. alone were to eliminate inserts, how much could that 20% be reduced? The truth is I have no idea how to figure that out.

The industry association says that more than 10,000 magazines are published in the U.S. every year, and that only 2,000 have "significant" circulation. Even if only those 2,000 were to ban inserts, I suspect that the numbers of trees that could be saved would be significant.

The only way out of our climate problem at any reasonable pace is through corporations and government taking bold, strong measures. Here's one that would change the deforestation statistic immediately.

C'mon, Mr. Meacham, talk to your pals. Let's save the trees, have less to recycle, and let those blessed trees do what they're meant to do here on Earth.

For spiritual nourishment, go to www.susancorso.com.

Rihanna's Tight Mermaid Dress: Love It Or Leave It? (PHOTOS, POLL)

2009-11-10T17:11:47Z

Rihanna showed up in a body-hugging white mermaid dress at Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year Awards at NYC's Carnegie Hall Monday night, where she accepted "The Back-On-Top Superstar" award from Iman.

"As usual I decided to wear the tightest dress I could find," Rihanna joked after she made her way slowly to the stage.

Scroll down to watch the video of Rihanna's acceptance speech.

PHOTO:

WATCH:

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Lesley M. M. Blume: 12 Glamorous Role Models Talk About Their Role Models (PHOTOS)

2009-11-10T12:20:04Z

If someone invited you to a dinner party, and told you that the other guests would include poet Maya Angelou, designer Stella McCartney, Ambassador Susan Rice, and comedienne Amy Poehler (oh, and Michelle Obama might just stop by for appetizers), how long would it take you to leap out of your seat and scramble over to the fete?

You'd get there in record time, I bet.

Last night I had a comparable experience: I was given a catbird seat at the events celebrating Glamour magazine's Women of the Year awards, which honored the ladies mentioned above and many other "courageous and inspiring women who are changing the world."

It's a little bit weird to be in such close proximity to some of our era's amazons: several of them are literally Amazonian, like Iman or Tyra Banks (I'm not a short woman and I still felt mouse-like standing in front of them with my little tape recorder). Others, like Ambassador Rice, are surprisingly tiny but could absolutely bowl you over with their stare.

The important role that mentoring plays in women's lives was the theme of the night; Honoree Michelle Obama discusses it with particular intensity in Glamour's December Issue.

"For me, role modeling was immediate, it was touchable," she says. "I had people rooting for me ... it really makes a difference."

She's a very lucky lady in this respect: having role models and mentors can make a huge difference in a young woman's life. I still have my icons, who strengthen my resolve on a daily basis (my beloved copies of Diana Vreeland's DV and Marlene Dietrich's ABC are often secretly tucked into my bag for courage during big, nervous-making interviews). Female writers have been writing about the importance of encouragement and example for generations; Virginia Woolf and Alice Walker both avidly emphasize the importance of "forerunners."

So, with this in mind, I trotted around the Women of the Year dinner and asked a handful of prominent women who their earliest female role models were. After all, as Stella McCartney said at one point during the evening, "behind every great woman is a great woman."

Read the excerpts below each slideshow picture to see who has influenced some of our era's most visible ladies. Not surprisingly, "mom" gets the center stage in most of their stories.

Click here for more coverage about the Glamour Magazine 2009 Women of the Year Awards.

Padma Lakshmi's Sheer, Belly-Hugging Sheath (PHOTOS)

2009-11-10T10:43:27Z

Pregnant Padma Lakshmi walked the red carpet at the Glamour Magazine 2009 Women Of The Year Awards (more coverage to come) on Monday night in a sheer black sheath.

Last month Lakshmi confirmed she is pregnant, and has been proudly wearing body-hugging dresses ever since.

PHOTOS:

Who Is The Ultimate Game Changer In Style? VOTE NOW!

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Conde Nast Looks To China For Growth

2009-11-09T08:21:01Z

With the gloss off the US ad scene, mag giant Conde Nast is looking to China, hoping to drum up business in the fast-growing nation.

The push to the East is happening at a time when cuts are digging deep at Conde -- from the closure of Gourmet and parent mag Cookie to double-digit job losses at its Midtown offices.

"In emerging markets like China . . . the magazine business and magazine development continue to go very strong," Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Conde's international arm, said in China over the weekend.

Robert Pattinson On The Lonely Life Of A Teen Heartthrob

2009-11-02T16:11:21Z

"Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson graces the December cover of Vanity Fair. Inside, the brooding Englishman talks about auditioning for his star-making role, his lonely life, and his costar Kristen Stewart, with whom he's been linked in the tabloids.

The press release is below, and more pics from his VF shoot are here.

NEW YORK, N.Y.--Robert Pattinson tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Evgenia Peretz that the rumors of his secret relationship with Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart are untrue. "It doesn't make any difference what you say [to the tabloids]. I've literally been across the country [from Kristen], and it's like 'Oh, they were on secret dates!' It's like 'Where? I can't get out of my hotel room!' " As for Stewart, she sounds significantly more fed up about the whole thing: "It's so retarded," she tells Peretz. "We're characters in this comic book."

For the record, Pattinson insists that he and Stewart are really just "good friends," and that he deeply admires her. "I think she's the best young actress around," he tells Peretz. "She's influenced how I've done all the Twilight stuff. It's quite nice to have someone who is genuinely indifferent to the whole spectacle of everything."

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke tells Peretz that the young co-stars shared major chemistry while filming. "What Rob and Kristen had is a multitude of feelings for each other. Complex feelings for each other. It was what we needed. Complex, intense fascination."

Before his Twilight audition, Pattinson tells Peretz, he had never read the Twilight books, had been "getting drunk for a year," felt like a blob and dreaded having to take his shirt off, which the audition required of him. Having nothing to lose, he went in "a little more brazen than I would have been in a normal audition." Recalling one of the scenes he did with Stewart, on Hardwicke's bed, in which he and Stewart have a passionate but aborted kiss, he says, "I was still in the mode thinking, I've got to make this really, really serious. This is not just a sexy thing.... I was slamming my head against the wall and kind of going nuts." He was sure he had made a complete ass of himself. "I remember calling my parents and saying, 'That's it. I'm not doing this anymore.' And then hearing, 'O.K., fine,' which was not the answer I wanted to hear at all."

Hardwicke tells Peretz that people at the studio had their doubts about casting Pattinson as Edward Cullen. "They called me up and they literally said, 'Catherine, do you think you can make this guy look good?' So I said, 'Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get his hair back to a different color, do a different style. He would work with a trainer from now on. My cinematographer is great with lighting. He will study the cheekbones, and I promise you, we'll make the guy look good.' "

Of his newfound fame, Pattinson tells Peretz, "I'm trying not to drown." He continues: "I guess I'm not the type of guy cut out to do a franchise. I'm not much of a crowd person."

Peretz describes Pattinson as self-conscious and self-deprecating, constantly apologizing for being boring, for telling you a story you might have read somewhere else already, or for the mess in his hotel room. "I'm unbearably self-conscious about stuff," he admits. He tells Peretz that he thinks he resembles "a cartoon character," and that one of his legs is longer than the other, which makes him look "like an idiot." Of his brief stint as a model, he tells Peretz, "I was such a terrible model. I was really tall but still looked like a six-year-old."

Pattinson tells Peretz that there was a point before Twilight where he almost gave up on acting. "I was going to all these auditions and telling everyone how I got fired [from a play in London's West End] because I stood up for my principles, and making up all this bullshit.... I kind of went nuts for a while." He couldn't land another job, stopped talking to his agent, and began performing with a guitar in bars. It was a scene, he recalls a little ruefully, in which "no one gave a shit when you got up onstage."

As soon as he decided to put acting behind him, another role came his way and changed his mind: a BBC thriller called The Haunted Airman, in which Pattinson got to be in a wheelchair and act like "a weirdo. I just changed my whole opinion about everything." The role was one of many out-there characters--or "weirdos," as Pattinson says--that the actor has made something of a specialty. When you play a weirdo, he explains, "you can always have an excuse.... He's a weirdo!"

The December issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on November 4 and nationally on November 10.

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Leslie Goldman: The Naked Truth Behind Binge Eating Disorder

2009-10-28T18:57:04Z

Here in the blogosphere, we talk a lot about body image and eating disorders. About wildly airbrushed models and glamourized anorexia and bulimia and post-baby bods. But one topic we haven't lent much word space to is binge eating. Despite the fact that BED (Binge Eating Disorder) is America's most common eating disorder, affecting more people than anorexia and bulimia combined (1 in 35 women struggle with it, and those are just the ones who are diagnosed), the disease doesn't generate the kind of media coverage it deserves. Because it's messy. It's scary. It's complicated. Anorexia is nearly lionized by our society, representing the ultimate in strength and control. And the result is a thin woman which let's face it, is what grabs headlines these days. BED (and bulimia, to some extent) is pushed aside and ignored, like a suspicious-looking mole that we might pretend isn't really on our shoulder because if it was there, it might be cancer, and cancer is horrible and we just can't deal with such a thing right now.

But just because you ignore something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's where Sunny Sea Gold comes in. For you magazine devotees, her name will look familiar because she's the health editor at Glamour magazine. But what you likely don't know is that for years, starting around age 14, when her parents began the kind of fighting that ultimately ended in their divorce, Sunny struggled silently with BED. The kind of struggle that led her to sneak into her family's kitchen late at night, where she'd quickly slather multiple pieces of bread with butter and peanut butter or pile a plate high with chips and cheese for makeshift nachos. One night, she found herself perched on top of her "German shepherd's doghouse in the middle of the night, a can of frozen orange juice concentrate in one hand, a spoon in the other, crying and scooping the syrupy stuff into my mouth until it was almost gone." As she recalls on her new website, HealthyGirl.org, "I thought I was a pig, and a freak, because I couldn't stop this weird, secret, uncontrollable eating. I started wearing big, baggy sweaters or sweatshirts over leggings to hide what I thought was an unacceptably fat body. When I ate seven candy bars in a row one afternoon, I knew there was something desperately wrong. That's when my mom sent me to Mitch, the family counselor both she and my dad had been seeing throughout their divorce. He gave a name to what I had been doing: compulsive overeating-what's now also known as binge eating disorder."

Sunny was kind enough to answer a few questions for Huffington Post readers; check out her answers below, then bookmark her website for your new go-to source for support and information if you have battled or are currently battling BED. If nothing else, I hope her bravery in stepping forward to break the BED silence opens your eyes to the fact that you are not alone in your struggle, and you absolutely can -- and deserve to -- get better.

You've written that you don't believe looking at skinny models caused your eating disorder, as you were sneaking cookies and wondering if you were fat before you even knew what a model was. Now you work for Glamour, a major fashion and beauty magazine. What is it like now, as a real woman working in an environment where models are constantly walking by your office?

"Honestly, I wish every single woman could spend a few days behind the scenes at a magazine like Glamour. Sure, I see lines of models walking in on casting days. And sure, they're beautiful. But I've learned that it's really just a job. Those girls are like any freelancer with a talent, trying to hustle up enough gigs to make ends meet in NYC. In other news, not all of the models who come through our office are super-thin -- I'm sure you've heard that we're including lots more sizes of models in the magazine these days! As someone who helps girls and women who overeat and as an advocate of body love, I'm so excited. But I won't pretend that it wasn't a bit hard when I first walked through the doors of Glamour magazine as a twentysomething girl with binge eating disorder. Surrounded by successful, interesting, smart women, I thought that I was certainly the only one who struggled with food this way. But the "glamorous" women who work here turned out to be just normal, nice girls with real bodies and issues of their own. "

What was it like working for the magazine responsible for introducing model Lizzie Miller to the world?

"Fabulous! I was so proud of Glamour. We were all in love with that photo of Lizzie, so we weren't surprised that the readers loved that image. But we were surprised at just how strongly they reacted. That photo being in an iconic magazine like Glamour really hit a nerve -- and like our editor in chief said, the magazine is responding to what the readers want from us. What they need. Which is to see a wider variety of body types in magazines and all media."

Recent research has shown that binge eating disorder is actually twice as common as anorexia and bulimia combined. Why do you think it still receives so little attention in the media?
"I've got a couple of theories. One is that, let's face it, stuffing your face and gaining weight isn't glamorous. We're accustomed to seeing people who are disciplined and thin as strong and self-controlled. But there's a stigma about over-eaters and those who are overweight, as if they just "don't have enough will power" or are lazy. That is so not the case of course. There is a lot of emerging research which suggests that binge eating has a genetic component. Beyond that, emotional eating is a coping mechanism that some people develop in response to difficulties in life -- just like people pick up alcohol or drugs, obsess over relationships, or overspend. Throwing yourself into food makes you numb for a while, and can actually help some of us get through trauma. Gratefully, I don't need those binge behaviors anymore. They started hurting me more than they helped and I've replaced them with healthy coping tools like Pilates, group support meetings, writing and even a little meditation. And I've dropped 30 pounds in the process. That's why I started HealthyGirl.org, to help other young women get the support they need to start healing their minds and their bodies."

What kinds of emotions used to fuel your binge eating? And how did you feel during/after the binge? Did the eating ever provide relief, or just continued the cycle?
"For me it was mostly anxiety. I'm a driven person, and have high expectations of myself, care a lot about my work and my friends and my family -- I want to do everything right and be a good person. That means pressure. But it wasn't like something tough would happen at work and I'd immediately dive into a bag of miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The binges would sneak up on me. The little things would build up for a few days or even weeks until BOOM, I found myself eating frosting out of a can. (For real.) Right before a binge, my mind would sort of go blank, and I'd eat quickly and mechanically. I literally felt like an eating machine. After, I was too full and tired to feel much of anything except some heartburn and guilt. And that was the point: I used the food to delay feeling my real emotions. But eventually, the binging stopped working and I'd feel my emotions anyway, plus the queasiness and disappointment. I had to do something about it."

Do you believe people can fully recover from eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or binge eating disorder, or is it more like alcoholism, where you can abstain from the unhealthy behavior, but it's always, in a sense, ingrained in you?

"I absolutely consider myself recovered from binge eating disorder, which by definition means binging on a large amount of food twice a week. But I'm still, by nature (and genetics I believe), an emotional eater. Sometimes when I'm stressed, tired or anxious, something deep inside me still cries "EAT!" But now I have the tools to be able to abstain from that unhealthy behavior -- and most of the time I use them. I will literally pick up the phone and call a friend or read a few passages in an inspirational book. Or spill my guts to my new husband! (We just got married five months ago.) Once in a great while, I do still slip and misuse food, but it's not destructive anymore. Just two weeks ago, for example, I was nervy about something or other and had a few errant spoonfuls of peanut butter straight from the jar. I didn't beat myself up over it -- but I also didn't throw my hands up in the air and say, "Oh, I slipped up, so I'm going to just go all out and binge now!" A few measly spoons of pb is nothing compared to what I used to consume during a real binge. When I was a hardcore binging teenager I used to dream about the day when I'd be at peace with food and my body. For the most part, I'm there -- and I am so incredibly grateful."

To read more about Sunny and her HealthyGirl.org site, click here.

For a list of Sunny's top picks for the best emotional eating or weight loss books, click here.

For help with BED:
Binge Eating Disorder Association
National Eating Disorders Association
Overeaters Anonymous

Lucy Danziger, Self Magazine Editor, Trades Car Service For Bike

2009-10-26T08:46:35Z

Conde Nast has cut back, closing four magazines and asking the surviving ones to slice their budgets by about a quarter. So Lucy Danziger, the editor in chief of Self, has taken a step unlike any other editor and -- horreur! -- given up the car service that has been a longtime perk of senior management.

As the editor of a fitness magazine, Ms. Danziger chose to bike to work instead.

Isaac Mizrahi: "Fashion Needs To Be More Fetishistic"

2009-10-26T08:34:19Z

Isaac Mizrahi's clothing line may be getting ... kinky.

Joanne Lipman: The Mismeasure Of Woman

2009-10-24T09:32:43Z

For the first time, women make up half the work force. The Shriver Report, out just last week, found that mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families. We have a female speaker of the House and a female secretary of state. Thirty-two women have served as governors. Thirty-eight have served as senators. Four out of eight Ivy League presidents are women.

Great news, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, it couldn't be more spectacularly misleading.

Lesley M. M. Blume: Grace Coddington Talks Unconventional Beauty, Too-Skinny Models, And Her "Unpopular" Wardrobe

2009-10-22T10:50:33Z

As the creative director of Vogue, Grace Coddington might have the best job in fashion. While Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour has been making the magazine powerful over the last two decades, Coddington has been making it beautiful.

When The September Issue - a documentary about Vogue - recently came out, fashionistas were thrilled that the spotlight had finally swung around to highlight Coddington, who, unlike her boss, is famously publicity-shy. Yet since 1987, Coddington has been the mastermind behind some of the magazine's most definitive, lavishly imagined photo spreads -- many of which resemble luxurious "dreamscapes" and visual fairy tales.

Do you recall the fantastical 2003 Alice in Wonderland spread, featuring model Natalia Vodianova as Alice and designer John Galliano as the wild 'Queen of Hearts'? That was Coddington's baby. Or that divine Brassai-inspired 1920s-in-Paris spread? Coddington again.

'Little Red Riding Hood,' Vogue, September 2009. Photograph by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott; edited by Grace Coddington. Courtesy of Vogue.

This week, Coddington spoke at an event held in her honor by the New York Public Library's Council of Conservators. Although she appeared endearingly nervous when she first took the stage, Coddington's well-known resolve ("Usually Anna has the good ideas; I just interpret them and try to change them") shone through as she discussed her life's work.

Below is an edited transcript of her comments, in which she discussed the genius of photographer Irving Penn, weighed in on the recent Ralph Lauren photo-shopping controversy, and deliberated how celebrity culture may be changing the fashion industry forever.

* * *

On her earliest contact with Vogue, while growing up on a remote Welsh island:

"As a young girl, the one thing I looked forward to beyond anything was going to the bookstore to buy a copy of Vogue. It arrived three to four months old. I always looked at the pages and dreamed. I used to sit on the rocks and look at the sea, and it was good to think there was a life after this."

On her early days as an aspiring model:

"I used to hang out on the King's Road [in 1960s London] in bare feet and hope that someone would notice me."

On her preference for unconventional beauty in models:

"I was never your average pretty girl. I'm not blonde. And I guess one always goes for people of your own type. I like models with personality, that are as different as can be. Like Penelope Tree ...[or] Kristen McMenamy [or] Stella Tennant."

On a recent photo spread she directed, depicting a couple whose life is drearily dominated by technology:

"At one point, I got obsessed with Twittering and texting ... I'm very passionate about life and want people to focus on what they're doing. People [today] have the attention span of about ten seconds. There's so much to see in life. I like to sit on the subway and look at the people. Every day it's different; every day there are different people ... You just have to keep your eyes open all the time."

On how she draws pictures at runway shows instead of taking notes:

"I'm not very good with words. I'll write down 'red dress' and then later I can't remember what it looked like. So I draw everything I see coming down the runway. It helps me remember the show. But when I used to go to couture shows [while I was] at British Vogue, you were not allowed to do that ... it was against fashion law. There was a release date on which all pictures of the show would come out, and you were not allowed to draw let alone photograph the clothes on the runway. But I somehow got away with it."

On the famous Helmut Newton shot depicting model Nadja Auermann acting out the myth of 'Leda and the Swan':

"Helmut ran the [idea of the picture] past Anna, and I kept thinking, "They're never going to run it." Helmut told her, "Well, I'll need a swan," ... and we went ahead with it and [at the shoot] unpacked the swan. Nadja said to Helmut, 'What do you mean, you want me to lie in bed with this swan?' So Helmut showed her how: he lay on the bed and spread his legs, and told her, 'Hold the swan here.' It is the only time I've ever wished that I had a camera with me."

On photographer Irving Penn:

"It was one the great joys of my life to work with him. He had a tiny, tiny studio, minimal lights, minimal people. Everyone was very focused and he produced these extraordinary pictures. I don't know how he did it ... He was the last of those great photographers like Avedon and Helmut and all those guys; I'm sad to see them go ... It's our challenge now to find more and more and something different [and] I know we'll find another way, but there will never be another Penn."

Grace Coddington. Photograph by Didier Malige. Courtesy of Vogue.

On photographer Bruce Weber:

"He taught me so much about America, [and gave me] a whole new way of looking at things. He was really responsible for scrubbing everyone's faces, for fresh-looking women who you could touch, making them look vulnerable."

On photographer David Sims:

"He's much younger than me, and it's a challenge. I have to keep on my toes and be modern and keep up with him. He'll talk for three hours about a white background and I'm trying to go along with him and understand, and then we end up with a white background. But I could do the same shot with a different photographer and it wouldn't look the same. He has that undefinable modern edge."

On the eras she most likes to re-create:

"I love the fifties, forties, and thirties. I like the periods before I stared my working days. As soon as I was living that period, I wasn't interested. I hate the '70s and loathe the '80s."

On her predominantly black wardrobe:

"I'm not popular for that. I want a clean palate. I don't want to think about what I'm wearing in the morning; I want to put all of my focus on the clothes I'm shooting. It's like a uniform. You don't have to make a decision about it. I spend my whole life making decisions."

On the recent Ralph Lauren controversy, in which the company retouched a photo of a model that made her torso look narrower than her head:

"Most of Ralph Lauren's models are not super skinny: this is an isolated situation and I think that it's unfair that he's getting bad publicity for it ... You ask, 'Can't [models] just be normal sized people?' They have to be thinner than you and I, because you always photograph a little fatter ... [But] it is a big problem. I remember when I was modeling and I put on some weight, and they said to me: 'Lose weight or you don't do the show.' I'd spend the week not eating anything and just drinking coffee. I was eighteen or nineteen.

"But these days, the problems are coming with kids that are very young and very vulnerable ... you don't have to go to the extremes they go to. And because they're kids, they take it too far, and they can't regulate their lives, and next thing you know they're anorexic, and it is tragic. And I don't know what the answer is, except to keep on it, which we're all trying to do ... Personally we're not allowed, at Vogue, to work with girls who are very thin, but you never know, because you could book them and think they're a certain size, and they turn up on the shoot and suddenly they've spun into this anorexic situation. And you're on the spot and you have to get the job done and you have one day to do it, and what do you do? But you try to be responsible."

On how celebrity culture is affecting the fashion world:

"I have the reputation of not working with [celebrities] ... I just feel more comfortable working with models because I can push them around. But I do work with them; I took Keira Knightley to Africa and you have to like someone to do that. [However,] I hope it doesn't go completely to the celebs because it will kill off the models, but it's not my call. It's all your call. It's what you all are asking for."

On the fashion world in general:

It's a crazy world we live in. It's so fun. I hope it goes on forever. Or at least as long as my lifespan, anyway.

The transcript above is an edited conversation between Grace Coddington and Vogue editor Jay Fielden at a New York Public Library event ("Close-Up on Grace Coddington") on October 20, 2009.

Adam Lambert Goes Hetero, Tongues Girl For Details (PHOTOS)

2009-10-20T15:32:07Z

***Scroll down for photos***

Adam Lambert is on the cover of Details, and inside he impersonates a heterosexual in an awkward photo shoot.

He also talks about coming out, losing his virginity and having an acid-fueled epiphany at the Burning Man Festival. Here are some highlights:

You can read the whole Details interview here.

On kissing women:

"I am gay, but I like kissing women sometimes. Women are pretty. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily sleeping with them."

On his "Cajun" 24-year-old mystery boyfriend:

"I like 'em smaller and younger."

On connecting with his fans:

"A lot of times I'll pick up a bra and play with it during a song. It's a way to connect. It's like, 'I threw my bra up onstage and you're spinning it around. Cool. Yay.'"

PHOTOS:

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Conde Nast To Sell Magazine Issues As iPhone Apps

2009-10-20T15:25:25Z

Conde Nast is introducing a slick platform for selling, displaying and enhancing its titles' regular print issues on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Issues rendered for the iPhone screen will sell as apps, starting with this December's issue of GQ, priced at $2.99 in the app store.

Michael Henry Adams: The Black Elite Meet Uptown

2009-10-20T10:06:09Z

Mounting the serpentine stair, emerging into the dimly lit cavernous hall, one was embraced by the ever louder sonorous sounds of Sonatas by Chopin. Billed as Collections, Spring Season 2010, Harlem's Fashion Row, the showing of creative apparel I attended Thursday night was extraordinary! There surely could not have ever been a lovelier or livelier paced event held in the city.

Nor for that matter, is there a fiercer rebuke to Lara Stone and French Vogue's insensitive defamation of people of color via the notorious blackface skit, masquerading as a fashion spread, in the journal's October issue.

Held at the Gatehouse, a late Victorian industrial building-turned performance space, the show featured the elegant work of Dinna Soliman, wildly experimental offerings for men by handsome Haitian native José Duran, design-team-sisters, Lialia, and the incomparable Epperson.

Audrey Smaltz and Epperson

Every bit as chic and arresting as anything viewed in these collections, was the raiment of the fashionable, diversely-multicultural and inter-generational audience.

Such hats and coiffures, such precious paste jewelry, such fabulous frocks and marvelous shoes, all made one optimistic, for a change, that allure and glamour are not yet extinct!

And, as if one needed for that notion to be underscored, at the very end, as all of the show's models formed a tableau vivant, a bouquet was thrust at high-fashion-icon Stephen Burrows, smiling shyly, as the crowd stood to pay respectful tribute.

What strides this masterful man made in the 1970's, dressing Cher, Diana Ross, Lauren Bacall, Liza Minnelli, Jerri Hall, Lauren Hutton, Barbara Streisand and Farrah Fawcet.

What a moment of triumph, for the entire nation, occurred in 1973. During a benefit fashion extravaganza at the Palace of Versailles, which juxtaposed French and American designers, deploying a lithe contingent of black models who stepped down the runway in his sensuously diaphanous sheaths to a disco beat, Burrows stopped and stole the show! Providing opportunities to models that were heretofore overlooked or underutilized, Burrows helped to boost the careers of Norma Darden, Pat Cleveland, Alva Chinn, and Bethanne Hardison.

Mr. Burrows was accompanying our mutual friend Veronica, whose Harlem boutique from the 1990's is sadly missed.

Fortunately Montgomery, who was seated nearby, still presents the latest in hot-high-style from her shop on Seventh Avenue to satisfy the discerning.

"Where are Michael Mc Collom, Emil Wilberkin, Ludget Delcy, Malcolm Harris, Tyson Perez, Lloyd Boston, Kirk Shannon-Butts, Gordon Chambers or Andre Leon Talley," I asked that ultimate fashion authority Michaela Angela Davis, about a group of well known style-stars? Michaela, whose denunciation of American Vogue's virtual "black-out" and French Vogue's blackface monkeyshines are so admirable, answered, "I don't know! I think Michael is under the weather, but they are really missing out. This is a memorable evening."

Nodding in agreement I marveled at the 'magical' element of it all, striving to make a mark in New York. No matter who one is, even afforded the most ideal circumstances, it's usually a challenge to succeed here. But, all in all, is that struggle automatically greater if one is an African American?

"Often life is harder if you are black," said my friend Senait Asfaw, a comely and cultured woman who is quite unassuming, despite being an African princess. "But then, at other times, like tonight, being black can be quite beneficial!"

Senait was referring to the serendipitous way in which I had secured our invitation to the presentation. Heading home on Convent Avenue, last Saturday I was stopped by a young man. "Mr. Adams, I don't know if you remember me? I had dinner at your house with our friend Kevin Bright a few years ago."

Some well organized host may recall every stranger brought to dine, but ordinarily, I do not. But, as it had been a small gathering, with my artist friend Kevin, of whom I'm so fond, I did recall Randal Jacobs. A stylist/ designer from the small parish of Gadsden, Alabama, he politely, but annoyingly, always addresses older people like me as "sir, or, "Mr. Adams." "I've been trying to reach you, so that you can come to our show," he said with an earnest grin.

Embossed on the thickest Crane paper, his invitation was impressive enough, except in New York, one frequently takes such niceties for granted. Hence the pleasant, reoccurring miracle of the city, when something expected to be indifferent, turns out to be spectacular!

Here in diminished black Harlem was the best event in town. It is enough to make one wonder aloud if blacks were better off when segregation here was more straightforward and blatant? "In some ways, yes," said my friend Sophie Jonson as the princess and I listened engrossed !

"One better knew where one stood and if we were excluded from white magazines, clubs, stores or fashion shows, we had our own. But no," she continued, and we agreed, "Equal opportunity; that's the promise of America! Moreover, when one competes, one must compete with everybody -- that's the only true way to access excellence."

Biding Sophie a good night, tiring momentarily of such serious talk on a cold drizzly corner, jumping into a taxi, we raced uptown to feast on Cuban sandwiches and chicken soup. Refortified, we then went next door to No Parking, to flirt with the charming barman and dancers and to marvel at our good fortune.