Magazine brands like Glamour are all about GIRL POWER. Feministing! Being strong womyn! Having pseudo-lesbian experiences during undergrad and shopping a book deal based on it!
So it pleased us to read Glamour's Jenny Feldman, behind the Slave to Fashion blog, announce an experience that has truly liberated her: CONTINUED »
At the ASME luncheon yesterday, Runner's World editor in chief David Willey was elected as president of the organization, replacing Glamour's Cindi Leive. So what can be said of the old and new regimes? CONTINUED »
Glamour editor Cindi Leive: "It all comes down to never be mean to the reader. It has to do with what's going on in the world right now. You want a magazine that is going to make you feel better about yourself. Women have intense personal relationships with their magazines. [...] Headlines don't talk down or blame or accuse women. Most are complimentary and positive messages."
And some are outright lies! Not only can some women not be glamorous, most women cannot achieve the distance between Natalie Portman's thighs. CONTINUED »
Glamour's readers revolted, and dating blogger Mike Cherico has been axed. We won't pretend to have read most (any?) of his dating tales (where he claims to date a different girl each night of the week), but suffice the say, Glamour.com's readers have, and they're disgusted. "Honestly, Mike is exactly what scared me about my daughters dating one day," wrote one commenter.
So goes the scenario: He was dating a one "Miss Smarty Shoes," who he was enthralled with, even letting her take over the blog for a day. She invited him to a concert, but he saw a cut on her lip, which he immediately concluded was herpes, thus giving him free reign to hold hands with another woman while on the date. So … women frown on that?
Not helping things: "Miss Smarty Shoes" has been posting vociferously on the site. One of her rambling lists of anecdotes follows. CONTINUED »
Seth Rogen, our favorite deadbeat dad, is hoping to turn his beer belly into a lite beer belly for his upcoming part as the Green Hornet. To lose the weight, Rogen plans on eschewing pot brownies and microbrews for two months. With any luck, plump men everywhere will understand our outrage over America Ferrera’s Glamour cover.
[MTV]
Although we can’t seem to shake the nasty habit of writing in the royal we, occasionally one of our editors decides to shake off the cloak of anonymity to write a short, pithy statement long, rambling diatribe about a topic of their choice. Today, Debbie Newman is that editor.
Yesterday we told you about Ashley Baker, the Glamour blogger who's only just now been canned for her six week-old statement that Afros and other "political hairdo's" have no place in a corporate setting.
At the time, people (both with and without ethnic hairstyles) had some slightly averse reactions to the remarks, but editor-in-chief Cindi Leive decided that the I-G-N-O-R-E policy was probably best. So she kept her mouth shut,* plastered on a smile and told herself this whole minor PR "hiccup" would eventually just blow over.
Breaking! Glamour's former fashion/style blogger once said something that was inadvertently offensive to black people. Naturally, the girl was promptly fired, a mere six weeks after the fact.
ALWAYS composed Cindi Leive - the Glamour editrix who presides over the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) - shocked staffers at a recent editorial meeting when she became "outraged" and "furious" at fashion editor Ashley Baker. Leive had just read a story in American Lawyer magazine, which reported that during a presentation in June to a group of women at a law firm, Baker had declared that "dreadlocks or Afros are a definite 'no.' "
As for us, we can't decide what's more shocking. The fact that Glamour magazine had a hidden follicle bigot in their midsts, or that editor-in-chief Cindi Leive is only "just" learning about all this now. Especially given that the story is six weeks old, and Baker blogged about the now infamous presentation the very same day it happened.
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.
So begins Janet Malcolm’s case study of journalistic betrayal, The Journalist and The Murderer. Fortunately, we are too full of ourselves to notice. Besides most “real” journalists would say that what we do isn’t morally indefensible in that sense anyway.
Malcolm never wrote about art editors, but in the age of photoshop there’s definitely material for an Adobe expose.
Like journalists, their job is complicated by their conflicting desires to sell magazines and be honest. Sure a Q&A will read better with heavy editing and Glamour might sell more covers with a thinner America Ferrera, but that doesn’t mean doing those things is right. And does the public deserve some of the blame for subconsciously wanting an Andy Roddick with bigger arms?
Well, these issues are too weighty for a Friday, but one thing is for sure: if you’re going to do touch ups, there’s no point in lying about which direction you’re going in.
Self art director Petra Kobayashi claims, “We retouch to make the models look bigger, healthier.”
Wow, their touchups are so subtle we barely noticed how fat the model above looks.
This month Glamour is filled with half-truths. Along with a thin America Ferrera, Jessica Coen, former Gawker editor and current New York Magazine editor, presents herself as a contrite ex-blogger.
It’s not that we have any doubt that working from home writing nasty things about strangers online could affect one’s psyche. It’s more that Jessica Coen totally reinvents herself as a Glamour reader. The Jessica Coen she describes is weight obsessed, insecure and judgmental of penis size.
In the spirit of Jessica Coen’s call for kindness in the blogsphere, we would have pegged her as more of a Cosmo girl. Seriously, not even gynecologists offices subscribe to Glamour.
The art director of Glamour has us stumped.
We get that thin is in and everything, but why would you thin out America Ferrera? Her whole career, from Real Women Have Curves to Ugly Betty is based on her not being skinny. A major plot of point of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was the size of her ass. If the Men’s Fitness editor was called out for adding muscle to a professional athlete, don’t you think that people would be able to tell that pounds were digitally shaved off of America Ferrera?
It seems impossible, but this cover is not even worthy of a feature about 39 sexy things to do with hair.
Sad news, guys. Glamour style blogger Suze Schwartz is taking a break from work to go water-skiing on the Chesapeake Bay. Sure, she'll have someone clocking in for her at the keyboard, but it just won't be the same. And then, when Suze does get back, she's going to be super busy — and might not even have enough time to write for people like us who waste dozens of seconds reading her posts. Suze has "neckline shoots" (parents must be proud), "two days of major makeovers" (her own?), and then it's Fashion Week, where she goes "backstage to all of the shows and interview the hair and make-up artists as they describe how to get the look. Frankly, I am desperate to make it more interesting - if you've got any great ideas or questions, please, please, please pass them along."
Naturally, we're about to witness user-generated content at its best.
Did you hear? Jane subscribers are now receiving complimentary copies of Glamour in the mail. Naturally, former Jane staffers are handling this unforeseen development with the requisite level of poise, maturity and grace.
Reports Page Six:
FORMER Jane magazine staffers are livid that Conde Nast is sending their one-time readers copies of Glamour now that Jane has bitten the dust. "I want all the Jane readers to just cancel, rather than get Glamour," one ex-staffer griped. "I hope they call and say, 'I don't want this. Give me GQ, anything but this.'
Not sure what the big frickin' deal is? One of many ex-Jane staffers explains!
• Clay Aiken isn't bringing sexy back with this campy JT impression, unless of course by "sexy" you really mean "freakishly disturbing" and "awkwardly effeminate."
• For all you nonathletic types out there, here's some vintage Dave Barry. Oh, and maybe try watching SportsCenter sometime, will you? Jeez, you throw like a girl.
• Slightly-racist Glamour editor willing to tolerate black people, but only so long they promise to avoid making any icky political statements. Like having long hair.
When British Glamour named Ugly Betty star Eric Mabius their "Man of the Year," what they were really doing is asking: Would you come guest edit the magazine?
If Graydon Carter will let a musician like Bono play in his sandbox, surely an actor – who we know best as "that guy from The L Word who was dating the lesbian who didn't know it yet" – should get the same opportunity. Which means instead of editing the fictional lady fashion magazine Mode, Mabius is "editing" the "If Men Edited Glamour" issue of an actual lady fashion magazine.
Which will likely look just like any other issue, but with more spreads dedicated to Rebecca Romijn.
… and starts installing closets. [Glamour]
This is the day I lay in a pre-op room of a hospital, staring at the brightly lit ceiling, being prepped for gastric bypass surgery. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. I was so angry: How had I allowed myself to get to 307 pounds? I could clearly remember the days when I’d considered myself fly and curvaceous. Funny—or sad—how we “thick” girls can justify being excessively overweight. It was something I’d been doing all my life.
Um. That's the second paragraph of Star Jones' article in this month's Glamour. (The lezzie issue.) It's also the first time the woman has come clean about what took her from a rotund 307 pounds to a caked-on-make-up shadow of her former self who will, undoubtedly, be the star of CourtTV TruTV in January.
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Is this perhaps the most homoerotic cover Glamour has ever run? Their boobs are touching!
Glamour's about to kick off a third season of its movie offshoot? Surely we should have seen a press release about the first or second season of Reel Moments before … but, well, no. So what is this fantastic example of brand synergy?! CONTINUED »
"After two months of kissing and blogging on glamour.com," writes WWD, "stand-up comedian Michael Somerville has won the online contest to become Glamour magazine's Jake columnist and reveal all about his dating-in-the-city adventures. Somerville beat out Radar editor Neel Shah and GQ contributor Adam Stein for the honor, and will begin doling out advice on love and sex to the title's readers in the August issue."
It goes without saying, the use of hand soap was a prerequisite for landing the job.
"Since shopping for swimwear can be an incredibly daunting task, I'll be answering any and all of your swimwear-related questions today," blogs Glamour fashion ed Suze Schwartz. "Whether your problem is fit, style, or finding the most flattering suit for your shape, I'm here to help. I've done more than 2,000 swim makeovers in my time here at I and there's no problem I haven't seen. Don't be shy - ask away!"
Not a single bathing suit problem you haven't seen? Something tells us that working at a magazine like Glamour, you've never had to deal with this problem.
Editorial Director
