Front Row (31 page)

To
The New York Times
, though, she put up a cheery front, saying nothing of substance and talking only on the condition that she not be asked about her plans for her new magazine—mainly because she had none. “I’ve missed New York terribly,” she said. “I’m enormously looking forward to coming back.” Speaking of her tenure in London, she said only that “Some people did not like what I did.”

By the time of Anna’s new appointment, British
Vogue
had gone through the most traumatic time in its seven decades: More than two-thirds of the staff had been replaced, she banned lunchtime drinking, she made sure her top editors were there at eight in the morning by sending cars to pick them up, most arriving rather bleary. It wasn’t quite the Blitz, but to those who worked in the trenches at
Vogue
it felt like it. While the look and feel had changed during Anna’s brief, controversial watch, circulation and advertising had stayed about the same.

As Drusilla Beyfus Shulman notes, “Everyone was delighted when she got the editorship of
House & Garden
because every editor at British
Vogue
could breathe safely.”

Anna rationalized, defended, and denied some of the changes she made during her tenure in London. She said she felt that everyone at
Vogue
“thought I was some sort of American control freak,” charged that the press had portrayed her as “a wicked woman of steel,” and claimed, “I only remember letting only two or three people go. But, no doubt fearing my awful reputation, a number left of their own accords.”

She said she was attacked because she decided to “infuse the magazine with a bit of American worldliness, even toughness.” She asserted that the “cozy but mildly eccentric atmosphere” at the magazine struck her “as out of date” and “out of step,” and “not responsive to intelligent women’s changing lives.”

In early August 1987, as scheduled, Anna had a baby girl whom the Shaffers named Kate but who would be nicknamed Bee, mainly because when she first started talking, the toddler had a difficult time saying her actual name, uttering something like “bah-bee.” So Bee it became. Fleet Street reported that Anna, after giving birth, was back in the office three days later. But Anna’s brother James told Vivienne Lasky that there was some concern about the baby’s health, enough that Nonie flew over from England to be at her side. But the emergency soon passed.

Some six weeks later, on September 9, Anna started the overhaul of her new magazine. Already speculation was rampant that she would be at
House & Garden
temporarily, a short respite before pulling out the rug from under Grace Mirabella.

The first day Anna was out of her hair, Liz Tilberis, the new editor in chief of British
Vogue
, resurrected that photo Anna had killed of Christy Turlington and made it her debut cover. She and her family celebrated Anna’s long-awaited departure with a real English-style dinner of takeout fish and chips washed down with expensive champagne.

N
o one would ever think of referring to elegant
House & Garden
as a parking lot. But in fact that’s how it was described ironically and in private by high-ranking editors at the magazine and top executives at Condé Nast. They called it that because Anna had been placed there temporarily until the time was ripe to give her Grace Mirabella’s job at
Vogue
.

“Anna was just being parked for a short time at
House & Garden,”
a tuned-in magazine executive says. “She threatened Si that she was going to go to another magazine, so he gave her
House & Garden
and parked her there while he worked out his Machiavellian scheme to get rid of Grace. None of what he did made any sense because he could have just gotten rid of Mirabella and stuck Anna at
Vogue
, and
House & Garden
could have remained a lovely magazine. Anna came in and destroyed it.”

Laurie Schechter, whom Anna hired away from
Rolling Stone
to work with her at
House & Garden
as a decorating editor, says, “She told me that she couldn’t stand being in England and told them [Newhouse and Liberman] that she didn’t care what they had to do, but that they had to bring her back. And so they gave her
House & Garden”

At
Vogue
, Anna’s cheerleader, the fashion editor Polly Mellen, watched the move and suspected what was going on. “Anna did an oblique, and I thought, wait, what’s going on here? I had a very strong feeling, a hopeful feeling she was on her way to
Vogue”

Just when Mirabella thought she was finally safe from that skinny shark draped in Chanel, she started hearing the
Jaws
theme song ringing in her ears again. With Anna back in New York to run
House & Garden
, Mirabella’s job was in even greater jeopardy than when Anna was at
Vogue
as creative director—for a couple of reasons.

Not only had Mirabella’s relationship with Alex Liberman deteriorated after Anna decamped to British
Vogue
, but now Anna had returned to the Condé Nast headquarters a conquering hero who had seemingly turned the magazine around in less than two years. At least that was the perception that she and her guardian angel Liberman promulgated.

Mirabella was furious, especially because Anna had instituted at British
Vogue
“everything she’d seemed to disdain about
my Vogue”
during her time as creative director. Mirabella was well aware that Anna was a shrewd operator and a savvy corporate politician and had completely won over Liberman and Si Newhouse with her brief reign in London.

As Mirabella acknowledged later, British
Vogue
“established Anna as a player on the editor-in-chief circuit.”

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Mirabella began telling confidants that she was thinking of leaving
Vogue
, but she wanted to do it on her own terms. At the same time, she still refused to admit to herself that she was swimming in dangerous waters and that Anna was circling in for the kill.

Meanwhile, Anna scoffed at suggestions that she had her eye on Mirabella’s job, declaring to
The New York Times
—nudge, nudge, wink, wink—that
Vogue
under the current editor was “fantastic” and that Mirabella was “doing a wonderful job.”

But Condé Nast veterans knew or suspected otherwise.

Just as fear gripped American
Vogue
and British
Vogue
when staffers knew she was coming, the same mood now existed at
House & Garden
. “Everyone was scared to death because she was known to be a
terrible
woman,” a veteran of more than a dozen years at the magazine recalls vividly.

Anna began pulling together her own creative team, which included André Leon Talley, who had been working as a style reporter at Condé Nast’s
Vanity Fair
. Talley would be, as Anna said at the time, “covering the waterfront in his own special way.”

Laurie Schechter’s new position was to oversee a newly minted style column that would encompass interior decorating, living, and fashion.

When Schechter arrived, Gabe Doppelt, the young woman she had recommended to Anna to be her assistant in London, was now listed as an editor, six names underneath Anna’s, while Schechter’s was eight names below Doppelt’s, an indication of things to come.

Doppelt was quickly earning a reputation as difficult and bossy like Anna, having been her right hand since London. “Gabe was wretched,” notes a female former
House & Garden
editor who had been waiting to have a meeting with Anna but was getting put off by Doppelt, who kept saying, “Anna’s getting ready for you . . . don’t worry, everything’s fine.” After being fired by Anna, the editor went into Doppelt’s office and declared, “ ‘You were very sweet when you were lying to me.’ When I left I certainly wished both of them ill.”

Anna had also brought in a Park Avenue and international mix she called “consulting editors” and put them on the masthead. This posh and glitzy group included diamond-studded socialite Brooke Astor; Anna’s restaurateur pal Michael Chow; her friend Oscar de la Renta; Dodie Kazanjian, who was about to cowrite an authorized (and some would say hagiographic) biography of Alex Liberman; and John Bowes-Lyon, who was related to the queen of England. Most were there mainly for their contacts and insights into the world of the rich and famous.

Gone were editors like Denise Otis, who was a top lieutenant to fired editor in chief Lou Gropp. “I’d been there a long time, but I didn’t stay very long after Anna took over,” says Otis. “The new management got bored with us, or annoyed with us, because we didn’t seem to move fast enough. But you can’t move beyond your readers. Anna’s approach was a fashion approach, and at that time Condé Nast was still a fashion company. They were used to the fashion pacing.”

Anna personally and viciously went after those leftovers from the old regime who had not already read the writing on the wall and resigned. Many needed jobs and stayed on as long as they could.

From behind her steely cold Buchsbaum desk and surrounded by tubs of pink peonies, Anna held personal meetings in her office with most staffers.

“Although she looked young, she looked like a person who was never a little girl and never played with dolls—unless she put pins in them,” recalls one female senior editor who was axed on the spot by Anna. “In that British accent of hers, she said, ‘Well,
you
won’t fit in.’ I said, ‘How do you know? I have this idea, and that idea,’ and I showed her a long list. We ended up standing up and yelling at each other, and I told her I hoped she fell on her face.”

About a half hour later the two ran into each other at the elevator. Anna looked through her and refused to acknowledge her presence.

In her first days at the magazine, Anna met with everybody “except people that she hated, those who were the age of her mother,” a senior staffer asserts.

Those who fit in that category felt age discrimination radiating from the bobbed, slender, and fashionable new editor in chief. “Young, young, young,” says one creative and talented older editor who soon left. “She didn’t want older people. She was mean to older staffers. My son is a lawyer, and as soon as I realized what she was up to I called him and said, ‘I think I’m going to need a lawyer.’ You don’t wait until the shit hits the fan. As soon as you see the fan, you hire a lawyer.”

The editor felt an age discrimination suit might be in order. Her son put her in touch with an attorney who specialized in such cases, and he advised her to make detailed notes about things Anna said, particularly if she ever used the word “youthful.” Luckily, for Anna’s sake, the editor never heard her utter it, though it’s certainly a part of Anna’s lexicon.

Other editors ran out to get new, hipper-looking wardrobes in the hopes of placating Anna and making her think they had a youthful image and attitude—and save their jobs, even if their hair was turning a bit gray “Everybody had to shorten their skirts,” recalls one editor.

A few who didn’t pass muster, but whom Condé Nast wanted to keep around because Liberman liked them, were sent to the fourteenth floor, known in the parlance of Condé Nast as “the elephant’s graveyard,” where they would serve out their time and retire, some with full pay and medical benefits.

Veteran staffers who weren’t fired were kept around because Anna didn’t know the shelter business like she knew the fashion business, and she needed experienced editors and writers who had covered that scene for years for
House & Garden
to take her to the showrooms and introduce her to the industry. They were treated shabbily before finally getting the boot.

Anna’s planned retooling was not the first time since the beginning of the eighties that Si Newhouse had shifted strategy at the magazine to try to make it into a winner.

In 1983, while Anna was still doing her dog and pony show at
New York
, Newhouse, chairman of Condé Nast Publications Inc., had reduced
House & Gardens
circulation to make it an elite rather than a mass-market monthly. His hope was to put it in league with
Architectural Digest
. But
House & Garden
bombed, and a dark horse called
Metropolitan Home
raced into the lead of the shelter magazine pack. Soon more would come along, such as
Elle Home
. Eventually, Newhouse ended the competition with
Architectural Digest
by simply buying it.

Now Newhouse put his money on Anna to make
House & Garden
a success, if there was enough time before he canned Grace Mirabella and gave Anna her job. Anna was Newhouse’s favorite British editrix after Tina Brown at
Vanity Fair
.

The word was out that under Anna, the doddering eighty-six-year-old
House & Garden
was in for an extreme makeover. That included more than just larger pages, a new square format, lots of fashion coverage, and features on celebrities and socialites and nobility. Something far more drastic was in the works.

After almost nine decades, its name was changed—a corporate decision made by Newhouse, with Anna’s support. Her name first appeared on the masthead in the January 1988 issue, and the name on the March cover of the magazine became
HG
in three-inch-high letters. Nowhere in the magazine was there a mention that there had been a transition of editors or that the name had changed. Thinking it was a new magazine, many subscribers put it aside and continued to wait for their beloved
House & Garden
to arrive in the mailbox.

The first issue with Anna’s imprimatur got mixed reviews. Charles True-hart, who covered the magazine world for
The Washington Post
, observed that the new
HG
looked more like it had been “shot up with amphetamines” rather than redesigned.

“There is no question of subtle transitions under Anna Wintour . . . The
new
HG
is as different from the old as a remake can comfortably be. This one is born to be scanned: Its pages give the eye kiss after kiss of sumptuous color and snazzy scenes, little bites of information and dazzle, the glow of modern luxe.”

One major criticism of the first and early issues was that the graphics were distracting, especially to designers who saw their work cropped. One architect, after leafing through the first issue, said the layouts looked as if they’d gone through a Cuisinart.

Anna had also introduced
Vanity Fair-
style celebrity tabloid fare. That first issue included looks at the home life of Bette Midler, David Hockney (both of whom also appeared in
Vanity Fair
around the same time), Dennis Hopper, and some of the new Rothschilds. A column called “View” in
Vogue
was similar to one called “Talleysheet” in
HG
It all tended to make readers of both think they were seeing double, and it infuriated Tina Brown, who felt that Anna was intruding on her celebrity territory.

Anna assigned pieces to her pal Christopher Hitchens, who wrote about the George Bush White House as a place to live and advertising executive Jerry Della Femina’s “graphic” Manhattan penthouse.

A mixture of fashion, wealth, and elitism was in.

One photo underscoring the new look was of a guitar-playing Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis draped in S&M leathers while posed on Marie Antoinette’s bed in one of her palaces in Bavaria. One
HG
cover displayed a playwright’s rumpled bed with his pet pugs and books; there was a photo of Michael Chow standing on his head with an Eileen Grey pedestal nearby; and then there was the model lying spread-eagle on a needlepoint rug on a beach. Anna planned one issue around a Gauguin exhibit in Washington, D.C., which sparked anger from
HG
contributor John Richardson, a noted art historian. He was furious that she would use such art to hawk commercial design.

As she did at British
Vogue
, Anna turned
HG
inside out and upside down, fired and hired, raided other magazines for writers, including Tina Brown’s
Vanity Fair
, with whom she was enmeshed in an ongoing rivalry.

Most shocking of all, she arrogantly tossed into the trash upward of two million dollars in story inventory (text and photos), so she could start from scratch and do things her way.

“In her dark glasses, she went through every piece of inventory,” recalls a senior editor. “Every editor had to come into the room, which had light boxes to view the Kodachromes around three sides of the room. Everyone came in with their inventory. The photographers had been paid, the writers and editors had been paid who had stayed in fancy hotels during those shoots; it was a very lush life. But Anna got rid of everything—
everything
—except for maybe seven or eight stories.”

Put off by the celebrity and fashion coverage, longtime readers canceled subscriptions—a special toll-free hotline was hurriedly established to deal with the onslaught of fuming subscribers. Designer advertisers who were hooked on the magazine’s reputation for spectacular layouts of elegant interiors—not cushy, nouveau riche celeb party pads—began to bail out, although the business side claimed that advertising had held its own. While some fashion advertisers gravitated to the magazine, most traditional
House & Garden
advertisers couldn’t make heads or tails out of what Anna was doing, and the same went for those in architecture and publishing.