From the WSJ Opinion Archives
TASTE COMMENTARY
Glad-Handing the Glossies
Should the attorney general investigate fashion magazines?
After Eliot Spitzer's successful crusade against the securities industry, what should he do for an encore? Take down some corrupt politicians? Go after the Mafia? Too easy, I say. Why not take aim at the most powerful cabal in America? I'm talking about the editors of glossy New York magazines.
Tales of their legendary excess abound. For instance, Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, is rumored to employ an interior decorator whose sole responsibility is to rearrange the photographs on her office wall every few months. Graydon Carter, editor in chief of Vanity Fair, brought in his own architect to design the magazine's workspace at Condé Nast's headquarters in Times Square. The architect certainly got his priorities straight. Mr. Carter's own office is the size of a squash court.
If I were the attorney general, I'd begin by looking at the cozy relationship between the glossy magazines and their advertisers. Just as Henry Blodget recommended the stocks of certain companies without disclosing that they were clients of Merrill Lynch, so glossy magazines frequently endorse particular brands without making it clear that those same brands pay to advertise in their pages.
Take the relationship between Ralph Lauren and Harper's Bazaar. In "Genuine Authentic," a recent biography of the designer, the author Michael Gross describes an episode in 1997 when Mr. Lauren stopped advertising in the magazine because it printed an unflattering photograph of him. The only way Harper's Bazaar was able to persuade him to change his mind was by putting Courtney Love on the cover of its September issue that year accompanied by the line: "Courtney Love wears Ralph Lauren."
"Designers the world over not only expect but demand high-profile placements--in other words, prominent inclusion in what are called 'editorial' fashion spreads--in exchange for their advertising dollars," says Mr. Gross. "In the world of fashion-fed glossies, there's no separation between church and state."
Sometimes the efforts made by big brand names to influence the editorial staff are completely transparent. Beauty editors, for instance, receive so many free products that every two weeks they hold yard sales in the conference rooms where everything can be had for a dollar. If you thought the competition for bargains at Filene's Basement was fierce, think again.
Those lucky enough to work in the fashion departments of such magazines are deluged with freebies every day, some of them worth a great deal of money. At Vanity Fair, where I worked for 2 1/2 years, I once stumbled across a screwed-up ball of paper outside the office of Elizabeth Saltzman, the magazine's fashion director. "Dear Elizabeth," it began, "a while back, the Diamond Information Center presented you with a diamond solitaire necklace." Others plainly keep the stuff. Earlier this year, the fashion director of another glossy magazine had her wrist slapped when she was caught trying to sell on eBay a couture coat she'd been sent by Chanel. The floor bid was $150,000.
At Christmastime, glossy magazines have to take on extra staffers to deal with the huge volume of free stuff flowing into their offices. In 1996, the CEO of Condé Nast, Steve Florio, received so much booty that he had to hire three Lincoln Town Cars to transport it back to his house. We're talking handmade suits, cases of wine, sets of golf clubs--not your usual tchotchkes. The Lincolns sailed off down Madison Avenue like Spanish galleons packed with treasure. A spokesperson for Condé Nast says that this story, which I had from a closely placed source, is "absolutely untrue."
Is such petty effort at corruption really worthy of Mr. Spitzer's attention? So what if glossy-magazine editors give favorable coverage to those who cross their palms with silver? Presumably the readers aren't so intoxicated by the smell of all those perfume inserts that they actually mistake the puff pieces for proper journalism.
Well, up to a point. Readers of Vogue can go through any issue and detect a correlation between the number of advertising pages a designer has bought and the number of editorial mentions he gets. But are they aware that the people who work for glossy magazines routinely lie about what cosmetic products the fabulosi in their pages are wearing? Hair stylists and makeup artists will frequently claim to have used such-and-such a product simply because the manufacturers have put them on the payroll, when in fact they've used something quite different. In the industry, this practice is referred to as "selling a credit."
"To me, the biggest bulls--- is when fragrances are mentioned in photo credits," says an ex-Condé Nast fashion editor. "I've literally been present at thousands of photo shoots, and I've never once seen a stylist whip out an atomizer and spray a model with perfume."
If the readers of glossy magazines knew just how unreliable the editorial content is, would they bother with them? As with stock analysts, it's only because the editorial staff is believed to possess some modicum of integrity that its endorsement of a particular product means anything.
One of the benefits of Mr. Spitzer's cleanup of the securities industry is that the SEC now requires analysts to sign a piece of paper certifying that the opinions expressed in their research reports aren't influenced by anything other than their own, independent judgment. Would it be practical to ask the editorial staffers of glossy magazines to sign something similar? "I hereby declare that when I say that argyle socks are 'in' this season no part of my compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to that specific recommendation."
During the time I spent at Condé Nast, not a single employee would have passed that test--myself included. Mr. Spitzer, if you're reading this, I want you to know that I'm willing to testify. You can even subpoena my argyle socks.
Of course, it's unlikely that the attorney general will go after the glossy posse. Why would a New York politician risk antagonizing a powerful section of the media a year before a gubernatorial bid? In any case, there's very little upside. Vogue may have received more than $100 million in advertising revenue last year, but the industry as a whole couldn't afford to pay a $1.4 billion fine.
The only beneficiaries would be the readers, and who really cares about them? In the absence of Siegfried paying a visit to Manhattan, with or without Roy, these fat cats won't leave their gilded cages anytime soon.
Mr. Young is the author of "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People," a memoir about working for a series of glossy magazines.
