Yesterday's trial proceedings of futuresexcrazyfakefiremanvillain Peter Braunstein brought another frightening peek into his twisted mind. He wanted to kill Vogue editor Anna Wintour! "I'm going to kill Anna Wintour—because I just feel like it," the former WWD reporter scrawled in his journal. Our precious Wintour! But why?
Is it just us, or does psychosexfakefirefighterfiend Peter Braunstein's brain sort of look like it's smiling? Maybe they scanned it during one of those "Anna Wintour rots in hell" fantasies.
It's Take Your Kids to Work Day, and nowhere is that tradition better observed than at 4 Times Square. Today every limb on the Conde Nast tree had to prepare some sort of activity for the children, which meant, for example, ice cream sundaes at Bon App tit and creating Flip books at Flip.com. (Anything for page views!) Anyway, one Nastie snipes, "It's so crazy that all of these editors have to spend time preparing for kids to come through," as they're trying to do things, like, you know, close issues? And Anna Wintour was spotted escaping from the nightmare via Town Car this afternoon, accompanied by two older men—with nary a sign of her Charles or Bee. Our gay on the scene reports: "She was holding her sunglasses. I yelled 'I love you Anna!' She actually smiled and waved. One of the men said, 'Ah your adoring fans.'" Maybe she had the visiting children clean out the fashion closet? No Red Bull being passed out this year, though.—Doree
Blogblogblog. Blaaaaaaaahhhhg. The sound of it is just so terribly d class ! No wonder Anna Wintour "refuses to call anything on her site a blog and has charged her staff with coming up with a new word that isn't as garish-sounding. She wants it ASAP—in time for launch." Let's get right on it, then!
Ah, Badgley Mischka, the luxe line beloved of red-carpet-going starlets. Not particularly beloved of us, but that's just because we hate people who have difficult-to-spell names. Seriously, the Alex Kuczynski/ Dave Zinczenko thing is 85% because of their respective vowel deficits. Anyway: Anna Wintour! Just look at her, all fur-enshrouded, biting her lip in anticipation. Gawker lensman Nikola Tamindzic took the snaps here, of course.
In advance of New York Fashion Week, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) did indeed issue a svelte two-page set of guidelines for the care and feeding of skinny models. Actually it's just one page, as the second page is dedicated to bios for the issuing committee. Predictably enough, the guidelines themselves are thin, bony, toothless, lethargic, and anemic. (Rumors that the CDFA guidelines were spotted puking up a lunchtime garden salad in the ladies' room may be exaggerated.) It's all about a "campaign of awareness," as opposed to the (curl lip in disgust) "policing" of model body weight. The committee that developed the guidelines included various fashionistas (e.g. Diane von Furstenburg) and their pet health professionals; strangely, though Vogue's Anna Wintour is mentioned in a few press reports, she didn't make it into the final committee roster. Look for her on the front lines of the awareness campaign for February's pre-Fashion Week public skinniness discussion/publicity event.
Word today from Variety that an Anna Wintour documentary is in the works. The director, R.J. Cutler, has been encouraged by the success of The Devil Wears Prada and Ugly Betty, and thinks that a movie about Wintour's real life will be just the ticket:
We're saddened by the recent spate of anorexia-related model deaths, so we're glad that the fashion industry is taking these tragedies seriously and initiating meaningful changes. We were especially heartened by the news, reported by Page Six today, that Anna Wintour is spearheading a symposium on proposed regulations for model size. This kind of symposium is the right step, according to one "model agency chief," because
Your lurid first-hand accounts involving the New York media world continue to horrify and transfix us. As your anecdotes of media twattery proceed to pile up, we grow ever closer to the moment where the best bit of gossip is given its due, and its gossiper given a prize, if you consider free drinks with a bunch of Gawker editors and Paula Froelich a prize. So if you havent' already, tell your tale out of school here. After the jump, a lovely tale about uberflack Peggy Siegal, with special guest appearances by Anna Wintour, Meryl Streep, Patrick McMullan and that chick who wrote Devil Wears Prada.
'Tis the season of the gift guide, and our fave Anna Wintour spawn, Columbia undergrad Bee Shaffer, has some ideas of what you can get your nearest and dearest, as published in the Columbia Spectator magazine The Eye. She's got suggestions for girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates, kids ... and moms. Well, isn't that interesting. After all, what do you get the mom who already has portraits of herself by Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Helmut Newton hanging in her office?
Not only has AdAge crowned Vogue Editor Anna Wintour the Magazine Editor of the Year, they've put together a list/chart of "The A List," their top ten books for 2006. You can download it here. It gives a nice perspective on where the industry is going: More, the magazine of the year, is lauded for its pursuit of women whose best eggs are behind them. Rapidly-rising In Touch Weekly just cracks the top ten, coming in four slots below People. New York magazine is at number four, and AdAge declares it "a title that should be read around the country." It's true: How else will folks in Hamtramck learn to assemble a Malcolm Gladwell Halloween costume?
• David Carr likes Rachael Ray, man-hands and all. [NYT]
• Kurt Andersen can handle Gawker's spitballs. It's Thelma & Louise metaphors that give him trouble. [NYM]
• AdAge names Vogue Editor Anna Wintour Magazine Editor of the Year. It describes Wintour (Editor of Vogue) as "more Horace Greeley than Coco Chanel." We can't wait for the Vogue Editor's presidential run. If you can't get enough Anna Wintour, there's also video and photos of the Vogue Editor. [AdAge]
• If you like Wallpaper you'll love Monocle, the new title from Tyler Br l . We could actually care less about either, we just like typing Tyler Br l . It's a pretty perfect name. Try it yourself: Tyler Br l , Tyler Br l , Tyler Br l . Fun, right?[WWD]
• Hearst almost as cheap as New York. [Radar]
• If you go on Charlie Rose's show, he will totally take you out to dinner. [NYT]
• "We're looking for soulless people with a passion for writing and a willingness to report on the latest celebrity muckity muck." We swear to God, we did not place this ad. [Craigslist]
While Fashion Week is a time of creative achievement and sartorial glory, it's also a time to hold grudges and grovel for mercy. After writing an unfavorable review of Carolina Herrera's previous collection this past February, Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn was not invited to this year's show (and that's exactly what you get for insulting a designer's ruching). A bold move for Herrera — but shutting out Horyn is a fresh new approach to this season's classic minimalism.
Of all of Fashion Week's many miracles (not a single overdose yet!), this may be the most moving: in the still-empty front row before the Costello Tagliapetra show, Vogue editor Anna Wintour turned off her deadly force field, allowing blogger Julie Frederickson to get close enough for a quick interview. And? Wintour didn't snarl once! In fact, she thinks you all are rather uncreative. Granted, Wintour only had to endure the indignity of talking to a nobody for less than a minute before fashion week's master puppeteer, Kelly Cutrone of People's Revolution, saw what was going on and cut that shit short. Nevertheless, a major coup for Frederickson, who now has the responsibility of telling us exactly what Wintour smelled like. We really want to know! Did she have that fancy shampoo scent?
