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Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Condé Nast Was Always a House of Cards. One Man Kept It Standing for Too Long
Despite his vast riches, newspaper heir Samuel Irving 'Si' Newhouse Jr. didn't count for much in midcentury New York. The son of a self-made magnate who'd been publicly dismissed as a 'journalist chiffonier'—a ragpicker—he was a new-money Jew, stymied in society by a city stratified by race, religion and generational wealth. So when his father bought the enfeebled lifestyle publisher Condé Nast, Newhouse began 'to grasp the social possibilities uniquely available to him as the newly minted heir to Vogue,' writes Michael Grynbaum in his new book, Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America (July 15, Simon & Schuster). 'Si had grown up all too conscious of the fine gradations of New York society, the invisible old-world barriers that had kept him, by all appearances a wealthy scion, still stuck on the outside looking in.' (Newhouse died in 2017.) Grynbaum, a veteran reporter for the New York Times, fills his chronicle of Newhouse's half-century at the helm of the legendary publisher with enough gossip and arcana to satisfy even the most devoted of Condé Nast obsessives. But added together, it all feels a little sad. Newhouse was, Grynbaum shows, a striver who hired other strivers to publish magazines for a nation of, yes, strivers. Seen from that angle, the many tales of excess and infighting among Newhouse's famous editors (Anna Wintour, Graydon Carter, Tina Brown) add up to less than the sum of their parts. However successfully these media titans chronicled and embodied the high life, they remained well-coiffed flunkies swanning about in a fragile house of cards. At the height of Condé's cultural impact (arguably in the 1990s), the company barely turned a profit; one executive claimed the entirety of Condé Nast earned less than a single Newhouse-owned newspaper, the Staten Island Advance. It was elite, certainly, but not so much an empire as an expensive Potemkin village: America's upper-middle-class taste and tastemakers, subsidized by a single man.
Telegraph
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
How Vanity Fair fell from grace under Anna Wintour
'I certainly look at Vanity Fair and sometimes read it on the plane… Vanity Fair is a terrific magazine, but I'm not poring over it to see what they are doing.' So said American Vogue 's British supremo Anna Wintour in a 1997 interview with the fashion magazine R.O.M.E. That's a view which has definitely gone out of style for the formidable fashion queen who reputedly inspired the fierce magazine editor in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. Having already overseen Vogue since 1988, in December 2020, Wintour, 75, was promoted to chief content officer at Condé Nast, handing her ultimate editorial responsibility for the global editions of Vanity Fair, among other titles. Once a lavish, highly profitable pop culture blend of show business, politics and high society, Vanity Fair has, according to its critics, fallen in influence and quality. Plummeting news-stand sales and a decline in advertising revenue has left a publication fixated on money and status facing questions over its own relationship with those quintessential American Those questions intensified this week with the appointment of Mark Guiducci, 36, as Vanity Fair 's new editor (and first global editorial director), following the announcement in April by incumbent Radhika Jones that she was stepping down to pursue 'new goals'. It is not that Guiducci, a Southern Californian, who resembles a cross between actor Jim Carrey and a real estate reality television star, is perceived to be unfamiliar the magazine; rather that he's too familiar. Guiducci, who was formerly chief creative officer of Vogue, is a close friend of Bee Shaffer, Wintour's producer daughter. According to the media website Breaker, his nickname is 'The Anna Whisperer' on account of his closeness with his boss. ' Vanity Fair is best when it has an outsider-at-the insider's ball mindset,' says a former Vanity Fair staffer, citing previous editors Tina Brown and Graydon Carter. 'Tina arrived from England fresh from those waspish society exposés in Tatler; Graydon came from Canada and Spy [the satirical magazine he co-founded]. Much of what Mark has written has been about Condé Nast.' One event that generated much discussion, according to former colleagues, was Guiducci's account for Vogue of Wintour and Shaffer's dinner for Tony Award nominees in 2017 at Wintour's New York home: 'Call it sweet success!' he concluded of the night celebrating Broadway's equivalent of the Oscars . Guiducci, like Wintour, is an accomplished networker. An Anglophile, he studied at The Courtauld Institute of Art and counts Princess Beatrice and Eugenie as good friends. Just don't expect too many Vanity Fair exclusives about their beleaguered father. 'Mark's the ultimate Condé Nast company man – he even wrote Vogue features about tennis, Anna Wintour's favourite sport!' the former staffer says, adding, 'It's unfair to say it's over for him before he's begun but I wonder how revealing his Vanity Fair will be.' Guiducci's predecessor Radhika Jones, who came from Time magazine, endured a rocky tenure. Tina Brown's Vanity Fair delivered exclusives about Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher and infamously persuaded a seven-months-pregnant Demi Moore to pose nude on the cover in 1991; Graydon Carter balanced long reads on Old Hollywood and coverage of corporate scandals with world exclusives on Michael Jackson's alleged sexual misconduct and the identity of Watergate's 'Deep Throat'. Jones set out to broaden the editorial brief and include stories about people who were not rich and powerful. 'It feels like we have all this opportunity to tell new stories with new faces and new voices,' she declared upon becoming editor in 2017. New readers proved harder to come by, however. According to the New York Times, the magazine's print sales have declined. And, although digital subscriptions have increased, with overall circulation remaining steady at just over 1.2 million, online traffic is down 39 per cent in the last four years, according to the media measurement company Comscore. Jones's Vanity Fair generated some exclusives but, as with last year's bizarrely-written scoop about late novelist Cormac McCarthy's relationship with a 16-year-old girl – which appeared to treat McCarthy's paedophilic interest in a teenager as a great love story – they often went viral for the wrong reasons. While Vanity Fair always steered progressive in its politics, it has become even more stridently Left-wing online. Headlines have included 'After Thoroughly F---ing Over America, Mitch McConnell Decides to Treat Himself to a Break', 'Trump 2024: Why the Ex-President Should Never Be Allowed Within 1,000 Feet of the White House Again' and, earlier this week, 'Jacinda Ardern Is No Longer Campaigning for Office – Now It's for Humanity.' ' Vanity Fair under Tina and Graydon had plenty of buzz,' says New York society photographer Patrick McMullan. '[Under Jones] it became more politically correct, which is good in some ways, but I didn't feel compelled to read it as much.' The ex-staffer questions the wokeness and political posturing: 'A few of us met up just after Trump got elected again and someone said the only definitive metric that Vanity Fair has made the world a better place is through the magazine becoming thinner in size, meaning less paper, less trees chopped down and less emissions!' The May 2025 edition contained 90 pages, compared with 176 pages in May 2015. Jones's desire for a more inclusive publication aligned with a sense that the magazine needed a refresh after her predecessor's 25-year tenure. Her approach, however, was not universally well-received. 'The covers under [Radhika Jones] have been photographed badly to the extent that they are among the worst in modern magazine history', says veteran writer Roger Friedman, who covers Vanity Fair for the entertainment website Showbiz 411. 'I think that DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] stuff will surely go now.' However, a source close to Vanity Fair says that Guiducci is intent on keeping the magazine as progressive as it was under his predecessor. Sources say another factor behind Guiducci's appointment was the role he will play in shaping events hosted by the publication – the Vanity Fair Oscars party is still regularly attended by some of the ceremony's biggest stars. Part of his duties at Vogue involved organising Vogue World, a series of philanthropic artistic extravaganzas in big cities, including London in 2023. 'Vogue World is closer to a day of shopping than it is to the contents of the magazine,' says Friedman. 'If they were really serious they could have any number of qualified people who could be great editors for Vanity Fair. This is Anna saying she wants someone she can control.' A source close to Vanity Fair says the interview process was long and rigorous and that Wintour would never have chosen Guiducci if he wasn't the best candidate for the job. A spokesperson for Vanity Fair says 'the staff are thrilled with the appointment'. But Wintour's closeness to Guiducci remains a rich source of debate among fashionistas. Manhattan-based investment banker Euan Rellie, whose socialising resulted in him being nicknamed the 'Fashion Banker', says, 'I met Mark fleetingly – he was slick and polished. But Anna's M.O. these days is to surround herself with allies who she enjoys hiring and then promoting to the extent that it's in danger of becoming a social network.' According to a former Condé Nast editorial executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, the predicament facing Vanity Fair has been caused by Wintour's elevation as global chief content officer, which resulted in her supervising international titles. 'Her assumption of total power coincided with a structural upheaval in the company,' he says. 'The budgets got centralised in New York and international editors had to defer to Vogue. Anna's a brilliant editor but her strategic ideas were not always informed by a huge amount of background knowledge. 'She would go on Zoom meetings and talk about how to cover subjects, such as sport, that she wasn't always an expert in.' Another Vanity Fair contributor, speaking on condition of anonymity, adds that the magazine's feature ideas are often now commissioned and co-ordinated in conjunction with Vogue scheduling. 'If you want to write about an in-demand personality or event, Anna will have often secured the exclusive interview or photoshoot for Vogue and you'll need a fresh angle for your idea not to get [scrapped],' he says. Of course controversy has accompanied Vanity Fair ever since it launched in 1913 (it was folded into Vogue in 1935 before being revived in 1983). In 2009, the actor Rupert Everett, who was listed on the magazine's masthead as a contributing editor, was sacked for telling the Daily Beast, 'Who does one have to f--- to get off that masthead?' But the magazine long benefited from the luxurious excesses of magazine publishing with colossal editorial budgets and expenses. Joan Juliet Buck, a former contributing editor to Vanity Fair and editor of French Vogue, who wrote of her Condé Nast experiences in her memoir The Price of Illusion, recalls how a Vanity Fair Princess Diana cover story in 1989 arose: 'I said, 'I have this tax bill to pay', and Tina [Brown] said, 'I'll pay you enough to cover it if you write about Diana.'' Buck adds: 'Tina invented the buzz and the mix. The mix created the buzz. I wrote about the Paris Air Show for Vanity Fair, but she said, 'Martin [Amis] handed in his piece about Wimbledon before you handed in your piece about the Paris Air Show and I'm not running them both in the same issue – so you lose!'' Buck believes Vanity Fair has become the victim of changing tastes in reading habits: ' Vanity Fair used to gather together urgency and glamour into a single monthly object that created the thrill of the moment, and none of that exists anymore,' she says. 'With the end of magazines has come the end of moment itself.' Compounding Vanity Fair 's current problems are that Graydon Carter's Air Mail website, launched in 2019, is evoking the spirit of his Vanity Fair – a recent story featured allegations of sexual misconduct by the Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto which he denies. Carter has also poached a raft of former Vanity Fair staffers. 'Last year at Cannes [Film Festival] Graydon threw a party for the 100 th anniversary of Warner Bros and they upstaged Vanity Fair,' says Friedman. 'This year Vanity Fair didn't throw a party at Cannes.' Carter, who was indiscreet about Wintour in his recent memoir When the Going Was Good, nevertheless has declared Guiducci the 'perfect editor for Vanity Fair '. Brown called him a 'fabulous, fresh appointment with bags of fun and fresh ideas'. And Dana Brown, a former Vanity Fair deputy editor, also agrees with Wintour's choice. 'Mark's first job out of college was a Vanity Fair assistant so he has VF in his genes,' he says. 'He's socially connected in the art and fashion worlds and being a very public face is a really important part of it - that's something the previous regime didn't understand.' Patrick McMullan says: 'Everybody I know loves Mark so let's hope he brings the buzz back to Vanity Fair.' In today's world, that might prove too tall an order. Asked on the Condé Nast website in 2023 about his plans for Vogue World, Guiducci answered, 'Sooner or later, someone will do a fashion show in space.' The cosmos can wait. For now restoring Vanity Fair to its former glory seems like the magazine equivalent of the moon shot.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Yahoo
Tourism Protests Are Expected in Major European Cities This Weekend
All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by Condé Nast Traveler editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Condé Nast may earn an affiliate commission. Getty Images Across Europe's most popular destinations this weekend, the weather forecast says cloudy with a chance of water guns. Coordinated anti-tourism demonstrations, which recently have taken the form of crowds of locals spraying tourists with water pistols, are scheduled to happen on Sunday, June 15, in cities such as Barcelona, Ibiza, and Palma in Spain, as well as elsewhere in Europe, including Venice, Palermo, Lisbon, and other cities. 'Tourists have been warned of potential disruptions caused by activist groups preparing a large-scale protest for June 15th,' says Pablo Calvo, Spain Manager for travel operator Tours For You. 'The demonstration, organized by the Southern European Network Against Touristification (SET), will focus on major Spanish destinations, such as the Canary Islands (Lanzarote and Tenerife) and the Balearic Islands (Barcelona and Mallorca)." The protests are a continuation of a movement that first gained momentum in summer 2024 in Barcelona and the Canary Islands, as locals demanded action from politicians to limit mass tourism's impact on housing, jobs, and daily life. Spain, and Barcelona in particular, remain ground zero for the movement. Here's everything to know if you have an upcoming trip planned to one of the impacted destinations. Jump to When and where are the protests? What are the protests about? Should travelers be concerned? Travel alerts and advice How to be a responsible traveler In Barcelona, the protests are scheduled to start at noon on June 15 at the city's Jardinets de Gràcia. Additional cities in Spain that are planning to participate include Donostia-San Sebastian, where demonstrations will begin at 12 p.m. at the clock at La Concha beach; Granada, where protests will start at 11 a.m. at the Mirador de San Nicolas; Palma, where demonstrations are scheduled for 6 p.m. at Placa d'Espanya; and Ibiza, where protests will start at 6 p.m. at Portal de Ses Taules and follow the Plaça de la Constitució, ending in the Plaza de sa Graduada at 9 p.m., according to local news site Periodico de Ibiza. Protests are also expected to take place on June 15 in major cities throughout Europe, including Venice and Lisbon. Specific plans have not yet been released to the public, but parks, public squares, or popular tourist sites are likely gathering places. The protests aim to highlight the 'growing concern over the uncontrolled growth of tourism and its negative effects on local communities,' Calvo says, including rising housing costs, overcrowding, and the treatment of the industry's hospitality workers. Lluís Diago, a worker at Barcelona's famous Park Güell, said in a statement many of the jobs in the city's tourism sector are 'plagued by subcontracting and undignified and unsafe working conditions.' Improving working conditions and the housing market is a core focus of the coordinated demonstrations on June 15. The protests are fighting against "injustice from the economic model [tourism] sets,' said a spokesperson from the Assembly of Neighborhoods for Tourist De-Growth. In Barcelona, locals are pushing the city's politicians to reform policies like stopping a proposed expansion to Barcelona's El Prat Airport, tightening restrictions on Airbnbs and other short-term rentals, and placing limits on cruise ship arrivals. The message of the demonstrations may be geared toward politicians, but tourists could still be caught in the watery crossfire. 'We don't think there will be aggressive behaviors against tourists, so no fear for travelers," says Bruno Gomes, who works for We Hate Tourism tours in Lisbon, which aims to help visitors experience the city in a deeper way beyond its biggest tourist attractions. Although the demonstrations may sound overwhelming, there's 'no reason for fear, no need to cancel trips,' says Condé Nast Traveler travel specialist Murielle Blanchard, a consultant with Black Pearl Luxury Services. 'My suggestion is to talk to the [hotel] concierge and find out the route of the demonstration,' Blanchard says, adding that she has advised her clients to stay away from major sightseeing spots in affected cities on the day of the protests. 'It is better not to be in the middle of it. They have used water guns in the past, but I am not sure it will be the same this time." Similar protests against overtourism occurred in Spain across major destinations like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and the Canary Islands this May. Before those protests, the US Embassy and Consulate in Spain and Andorra sent an alert to travelers advising them to avoid the gatherings. The embassy also advised US travelers to: Exercise caution if unexpectedly in the vicinity of large gatherings or protests Be aware of your surroundings Follow the instructions of authorities and signs regarding closures and detours Monitor local media for updates Keep a low profile The same advice can be applied to the upcoming June 15 protests. Tourists can also make strides to be more responsible and intentional about the way they travel. According to Gomes, more travelers are being led by social media to the same spots with hopes of recreating the content they see in viral posts and videos. This only exacerbates overcrowding issues and stress on destinations' infrastructures. 'We are traveling more and more with strict agendas and to-do lists,' Gomes says. 'We know all about everything because of Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, stripping away from us what traveling should be.' Instead, travelers can strive to get off the beaten path, and venture beyond the tourist hotspots. Other helpful actions travelers can take include scheduling trips for the off season, traveling in smaller groups, hiring local guides, and supporting small businesses. These are issues that can be solved on an individual level, one tourist at a time. 'Explore, and engage with locals to give you a true feeling of what life and culture are in each city,' recommends Gomes. 'Go deeper. The biggest responsibility of overtourism is from politicians and greedy businesses, but we all have a responsibility too. If we consume and choose better, know where and to whom your money is going, we will in fact change things.' Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler The Latest Travel News and Advice Want to be the first to know? Sign up to our newsletters for travel inspiration and tips Stop Counting the Countries You Visit How Safe Is Flying Today? 5 Things Experts Want Travelers to Know The Best Places to See the Northern Lights Worldwide
Fashion Network
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Mark Guiducci new global editorial director of Vanity Fair
Lateral shifts in the world of glossy publishing: Vanity Fair has found its new editorial director within the same Condé Nast group in Mark Guiducci, hitherto creative editorial director of Vogue. Guiducci, 36, will take over the helm of the prestigious culture magazine later this month, picking up the baton from Radhika Jones, who ran the magazine for seven years. "There's never been a better time for Vanity Fair than now," said the incoming editor. "Every morning you read news that reads like operas, large-scale dramas, like a co-production between Marcel Proust and Michael Bay." Unlike his predecessors, Guiducci will be global editorial director: that is, he will have oversight over Vanity Fair's editions around the world, including those in Britain, France, Italy and Spain. Despite the difficulties in publishing in recent decades, Vanity Fair remains one of Condé Nast's flagship titles, and its editorship is still considered one of the most coveted roles in American journalism. Founded in the Jazz Age and relaunched in 1983, the magazine has had iconic editors such as Tina Brown and Graydon Carter shining the spotlight on the issues of luxury, Hollywood and power elites. Radhika Jones, who had taken over as editor of Vanity Fair after the end of Graydon Carter's 25-year tenure, had announced her resignation on April 3, stating that she felt "the call of new goals in life" and "horror at the idea of staying at the party too long."
Fashion Network
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Mark Guiducci new global editorial director of Vanity Fair
Lateral shifts in the world of glossy publishing: Vanity Fair has found its new editorial director within the same Condé Nast group in Mark Guiducci, hitherto creative editorial director of Vogue. Guiducci, 36, will take over the helm of the prestigious culture magazine later this month, picking up the baton from Radhika Jones, who ran the magazine for seven years. "There's never been a better time for Vanity Fair than now," said the incoming editor. "Every morning you read news that reads like operas, large-scale dramas, like a co-production between Marcel Proust and Michael Bay." Unlike his predecessors, Guiducci will be global editorial director: that is, he will have oversight over Vanity Fair's editions around the world, including those in Britain, France, Italy and Spain. Despite the difficulties in publishing in recent decades, Vanity Fair remains one of Condé Nast's flagship titles, and its editorship is still considered one of the most coveted roles in American journalism. Founded in the Jazz Age and relaunched in 1983, the magazine has had iconic editors such as Tina Brown and Graydon Carter shining the spotlight on the issues of luxury, Hollywood and power elites. Radhika Jones, who had taken over as editor of Vanity Fair after the end of Graydon Carter's 25-year tenure, had announced her resignation on April 3, stating that she felt "the call of new goals in life" and "horror at the idea of staying at the party too long."
