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Empire of the Elite by Michael M Grynbaum – inside the glittering world of Condé Nast
How the publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker redefined high culture
Condé brought pop stars, television personalities and tabloid intrigue into the highbrow fold, reconstituting cultural capital to fit the sensibilities of an emerging yuppie class with little interest in ballet or opera. Anna Wintour’s Vogue would “elevate the idea of street-style fashion, and presage the industry of stylists and celebrity brand ambassadors that have come to dominate lifestyle media”, and GQ’s preppy, “proto-Patrick Bateman materialism” popularised “the metrosexuality, dandyism and male self-care that have since saturated the culture”. It sounds like an exhausting world to navigate, “a land of unspoken codes … The proper knotting of an ascot; the angle of a tie bar; how you dressed, how you spoke, where you went, who you knew – these considerations mattered deeply.” Grynbaum quotes one journalist who believes she missed out on an editorship because, during the interview lunch, she gauchely ate asparagus with cutlery rather than by hand.
Or read this on The Guardian