NY Observer > Vogue Magazine

Julie Grau, Publisher at Doubleday, Writes About Her Abs In Vogue

Leon Neyfakh — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:39:05 -0400

Julie Grau, the glamorous co-publisher of Doubleday's Spiegel & Grau imprint, returns to the pages of Vogue this month with a piece about "the definitive ab-sculpting workout."

Well, why not!

The article is not online, but here's how it starts:

The doumbek was thumpin'. A frenzied melody rose from the oud. A woman with heavy eyeliner and crystals pasted to her temples was shaking her hips at me, her arms extended in undulating arabesques. She wore a cropped shirt that revealed a curvy middle of exaggerated proportions—a small waist that blossomed into generous, womanly hips.
read more »

Huffington Post Editor Explains Anna Wintour Post

Matt Haber — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:09:01 -0400

On Friday, we wrote about a particularly unflattering post about Anna Wintour on The Huffington Post. At the time, we wondered why the post existed at all—it consisted entirely of a grotesquely blown-up photo of the 58-year-old Vogue editor at a fashion show—and why it was on the site's Media vertical. Many commenters to the post were equally baffled. (Jezebel and Gawker subsequently wrote about the Huffington Post's post as well.)

An email to Arianna Huffington about the post and where it fits in with some thoughts she shared in her recent book, On Becoming Fearless, was answered by the site's editor, Roy Sekoff: read more »

Sean Avery's Vogue Internship: In Which He Doesn't Always Have to Wear a Shirt

Tom McGeveran — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:58:45 -0400

Have you been following the course of Sean Avery's career? Not with the National Hockey League but in his betweentimes internship at Vogue?

Well, Men's Vogue has. On their web site, Mr. Avery gets a byline for telling readers what it's like to be a hockey player who likes to play dress-up:

I don't watch sports. I don't read about sports. Generally, other than spending a lot of time in dressing rooms both at home and on the road, I don't hang out with other athletes. Over breakfast in hotels when the Rangers are on the road, I read the Style section in The New York Times. read more »

Slicing the SATC Publicity Pie

John Koblin — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:45:33 -0400

The media campaign for the Sex and the City movie, which arrives in theaters May 30, was executed with near-militaristic precision. You might call it “flooding the zone.”

Vogue, which itself has a recurring role in the franchise, easily secured the big kahuna: 43-year-old Sarah Jessica Parker on the cover and an elaborate photo shoot featuring her posing with Chris Noth, 53 (Mr. Big): on top of a skyscraper, on a red carpet, in the bedroom making sex tapes! read more »

Beauty on Avenue B! Vogue Cover Girl Drops $2.2 M. for Two-Bedroom Co-op

Max Abelson — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:58:45 -0400

Very blond, well-boned, expensively jeaned buyers have been pouring into East Village apartments for so long that it’s hard to find new excuses to complain about the area’s über-gentrification. read more »

Roll a Bolo to Your Pal? On a Globally Warmed Wednesday, Phillip Lim Shoots For the West

Meredith Bryan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:50:28 -0500

The densely-packed 3.1 Phillip Lim show at the Bryant Park tents on Feb. 6 was, according to several breathless Chatty Cathys stationed behind the Transom, “almost three times bigger than last season.”

It was also, owing either to the unseasonably warm weather or the attendance of Conde Nast’s entire payroll, approximately 92 degrees in the Promenade (not quite as bad as last season’s Rodarte show in a West Chelsea loft, which devolved into a very well-dressed steamroom, but tonight’s sea of flapping programs did cause momentary déjà vu). read more »

Oscar de la Renta Warms Fall Fashion, Anna Wintour

David Foxley — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:47:10 -0500

It’s springtime for Oscar in autumn! We just came from Oscar de la Renta’s Pre-Fall 2008 show, held in an old church on Park Avenue and 63rd Street. It seems even Old School fashion bigwigs like Mr. De la Renta are starting to acknowledge the fact that balmy temps can, these days, extend well into November.

Sure, there were plenty of black cashmere sweaters, dark brown suede boots, tortoiseshell patent clutches and sepia wool faille jackets to whet the appetites of onlookers like Vogue’s Anna Wintour and, a few seats to her left, Teen Vogue’s Amy Astley. But what really drew a few wide-eyed gasps—and a lone clap—from the modish onlookers was the abundance of color. Bright color—in floral, sequined prints, no less! Circumambulating one another in figure-eights and cockeyed circles, tall models (in even taller boots) stomped around the platter-shaped runway as if in some nightmare runway challenge on ANTM. At least their floral cloqué brocade skirts, harlequin ribbon belts, plum silk georgette dresses and emerald silk hammered satin gowns made it easy to avoid an eminent collision.

Continue reading after the jump. read more »

Penelope Cruz: Almodovar's Like Family, and Bono Was With His Family

Tom McGeveran — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:01:47 -0500

In Vogue's holiday issue, actress Penelope Cruz unloads on the paparazzi that fueled the story that she and U2's Bono were having an affair: read more »

Hamish Bowles Answers: What Is 'Vogue Living'?

David Foxley — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:31:15 -0400

With his shiny mop of hair and tortoise shell glasses, Hamish Bowles, the ever-dapper, somewhat avian-looking European editor-at-large for Vogue, seems a bit like a character only Evelyn Waugh could have dreamed up. But Mr. Bowles, 44, is in fact real and, it turns out, he's quite serious about what it means to live in a 'Vogue world.'

Mr. Bowles spoke to the Daily Transom last night at around 7:30 p.m. in the Calvin Klein store on Madison Ave. and 60th Street, where he and his new book, Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People, were being toasted with buckets of Veuve Clicquot. The party, which was hosted by Mr. Klein's creative director, Francisco Costa, was filled to the brim with Condé Nast editors, the majority clad almost entirely in black. Men's Vogue's Jay Fielden and Ned Martel made brief appearances. Vogue's Anna Wintour was also there, though, according to one of her assistants at the party, Ms. Wintour planned to make her entrance a mere 15 minutes before the celebration’s end. Other guests included: Deeda Blair, Tory Burch, Renee Rockefeller, Aerin Lauder, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, Anh Duong, Marina Rust, Allison Sarofim, Lucy Sykes and Jacquetta Wheeler.

Mr. Bowles admitted that, while working on the book, he felt the immense pressure to uphold Vogue's king-of-the-hill legacy. Aside from the expectations placed on his work, he said, “it's also a great door-opener of course. One of the exciting parts of this book was that I really looked through a hundred years of interiors and lifestyle and architecture coverage in Vogue. It's extraordinary how ecclectic that coverage has been. It's been, obviously the fashionable leaders of society, the great swans of the 20th century, but it's also been the most innovative architects, the most revered artists of the century, so I think there's an incredible legacy to live up to. I think it's exciting for people to be asked,” he said of the subjects that appear in Vogue Living.

When he was asked to describe what the quintessential 'Vogue person' might be like, Mr. Bowles nodded with an honest grin. “I think it's all about having the courage of your convictions and having a real personal conviction about style,” he said. Mr. Bowles then went on to describe what it means to be a 'Vogue trendsetter,' saying, “I think that they're the kind of houses and the homemakers, style-makers who create them that we celebrate always have a strong point of view, and it might be quirky and idiosyncratic. You know, it's a kind of translation of…they're people who kind of live as they sort of present themselves. It's a certain sense of style or a vision of how to live or present yourself is a very coherent thing, entity.”

Skeptics might be forgiven for being wary of the tedium that attends the notion of a Vogue person or house, but Mr. Bowles promised that he is constantly being surprised by unexpected people and surroundings when working on a project for the magazine or his new book. “What is exhilarating for me about covering houses and doing lifestyle stories for Vogue and for Vogue Living is the idea that you never know what's going to lurk behind that door. It's the idea of constantly being surprised and excited,” he said, wearing a gray, slim-fitting suit over a plaid purple shirt and dark necktie. “For me, the more reflective, the better. All I would say is that I hope and trust that it's going in very eclectic directions.”

Kristian Laliberte Responds!

David Foxley — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:34:34 -0400

After Kristian Laliberte read Paul Johnson-Calderon’s recent claims in the Daily Transom, the Unruly Heir publicist called us today to add his own two-cents on the matter.

First, responding to Mr. Johnson-Calderon’s insistence that the pair’s reality TV show was canned because of his work at Vogue, Mr. Laliberte explained: “The reason the show is not happening has nothing to do with Vogue and everything to do with a project that I’m working on. I can’t discuss it, but it’s 100% going forward,” he said.

(Mr. Laliberte then indicated that the Daily Transom might want to contact Vogue in order to find out if Mr. Johnson-Calderon was, as he purported, actually on staff at the magazine. We did; they said he used to be an intern assistant in the features department, but no longer works there.)

Mr. Laliberte was equally aghast at the suggestion that he ever tried to hit on Mr. Johnson-Calderon's current boyfriend, Peter Davis. “The first time I met Paul was when he pushed me at a New Yorkers for Children benefit and said that I was hitting on Peter. I didn’t know who either of them were at that point!” Mr. Laliberte said. “I am glad that I’m friends with both of them, and I think they make an adorable couple. I have no doubt in my mind that at some point they’ll probably get married. I think Paul would make a wonderful father,” he said, before adding: “I mean, personally, I like guys who are my own age.”

Wrapping up his case with little-diminished fervor, Mr. Laliberte explained that he’s glad he no longer spends a lot of time with his onetime frenemy. “I’m just not into the late night scene. I think its great that Paul is young and having fun, I just have to get up for work every morning.”