Glossy Magazines Are Golden Again

From Graydon Carter’s Memoir to Blow Up, A Sparkling Podcast About the Heyday of Harper’s Bazaar, I’m Gripped.

The golden age of glossy magazines began in the early nineties when Vanity Fair and Vogue dominated the cultural conversation. Editors of these and other monthlies became important figures as they lavished huge budgets on photo shoots, covers and articles which stirred debate, until the rise of Instagram crushed their power.

Right now bookshops, galleries, streamers and Apple Podcasts are heaving with accounts about “When The Going Was Good…” as Graydon Carter has aptly titled his pacy memoir recounting how his renegade years in independent magazine publishing prepared him to reign over Vanity Fair for 25 years, from 1992.

I’ve also been gripped by works exploring the craft and creativity of upstart titles. The Face Magazine: Culture Shift at London’s National Portrait Gallery showcases over 200 vibrant images produced over the youth culture mag’s 24-year life span. Refreshingly the curators - Sabina Jaskot, Lee Swillingham and Norbert Shoerner - have opted out of drenching the exhibition with video content, which often distracts from the pleasure of soaking up artworks lining gallery walls. Viewing it, I marveled at how the dazzling photography - by the likes of Elaine Constantine (above), Corinne Day and Glen Luchford - was produced on a shoestring and often spontaneously. The accompanying panels present a dizzying list of creative talent for whom The Face was a springboard to greatness.

When I was an aspiring journalist in the late eighties, I photocopied a Time magazine article about The Face’s publisher Nick Logan and filed it away hoping to work for his company, Wagadon, one day. Ten years later I was toiling at Wagadon, helping to launch Frank. This avant-garde women’s fashion magazine never achieved its ambition to challenge British Vogue, where I eventually landed. But Logan’s attempt was made possible by a rivalry that’s a juicy storyline in Blow Up: When Liz Tilberis Transformed Bazaar.

The six-episode podcast series explores how by revitalizing the U.S. edition of Harper’s Bazaar, Elizabeth Tilberis sparked the “War of the Poses.” This was New York Magazine’s title for a Michael Gross article exploring how Tilberis’s appointment pitted the former British Vogue editor up against American Vogue’s editor Anna Wintour - who was her former boss at the UK edition. As the brainy women waded into New York’s fashion trenches - competing for supermodels, photographers and stylists - the glossy magazine industry boomed and everyone who was a part of it benefited from their competitiveness.

Dennis Golonka and Cynthia True - co-creators and presenters of Blow Up - started their media careers under Tilberis at Bazaar. Golonka - who is now a photographer - was working in Bazaar’s art department under its masterly art director, Fabien Baron. True - an author and TV writer - was a fashion features assistant. They were roommates and remain close friends. Blow Up came to be because as they observed a proliferation of works about Wintour - from Amy Odell’s Anna: The Biography to Hulu’s streaming series In Vogue: The Nineties - they noticed that there was not much exploring the impact on fashion and magazine publishing made by Tilberis and Baron.

Blow Up’s first episode jumps into it. Linda Evangelista recalls how Baron shook things up from the get go by making the cover of Tilberis’s inaugural September 1992 issue arresting. He instructed her to pose for Patrick Demarchelier with her arm raised so she appeared to be clutching the third letter “A” in Bazaar’s logo. Aside from the statement - “Enter the Era of Elegance” - Baron did away with cover lines - those punchy statements which sell what’s inside. This was radical for a consumer-driven American magazine. As it became a Bazaar signature, Baron lured fine photographers to shoot for the magazine which had been languishing in the doldrums for decades. His spare style was widely copied and projected that magazines were more than lifestyle manuals. Bazaar, Vogue and others became status symbols, proudly displayed on coffee tables and toted in Prada handbags until they were replaced by smartphones. The high profile professionals putting them together were recognized as tastemakers.

Golonka and True conclude “Enter Elegance” - Blow Up’s first episode - in December 1993. Tilberis - who is now the “toast of New York…” - is hosting a “spectacular…” Christmas party for 250 fabulous people, including her editorial team, at the East 88th Street Manhattan townhouse she shares with her artist husband, Andrew Tilberis and their two adopted sons. Suddenly the unthinkable happens.

Tilberis leads her longtime friend Grace Coddington into a bedroom and reveals that she has stage four ovarian cancer.

Miraculously Tilberis survived for a time, expertly editing Bazaar over the next six years during which she endured chemotherapy and a life-threatening bone marrow transplant. Amid all of that, she raised her sons, mentored her team and nurtured a special relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales. In 1997, she “took the helm of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, traveling and speaking tirelessly on behalf of every victim of cancer,” wrote Hillary Clinton in an essay published in Bazaar’s July 1999 issue.

The edition commemorated Tilberis, who passed away from ovarian cancer on 21 April 1999. That month, her memoir No Time to Die was published. “When others might have retreated from the spotlight, she used her platform as a vehicle to raise awareness and research dollars,” noted Mrs. Clinton.

Guided by my hunch that Blow Up has the makings of a documentary or a scripted series, I tracked down Dennis Golonka and Cynthia True to discuss their passion project. Here are excerpts from our conversation:

Bronwyn Cosgrave: I really loved how Episode One of Blow Up opens on such a high. And then closes with Liz revealing to Grace Coddington that she has ovarian cancer. I knew that Liz had cancer because when I was starting out as a fashion reporter in London, I would see her sitting in the front row at Paris Fashion Week. But I never realized she was diagnosed so quickly into her tenure. I felt this revelation lent real emotional depth to the series.

Cynthia True: I don't mean to sound cold but just narratively you have to introduce your villain by the end of the first episode. So if you think about it that way, cancer is really the villain of this story.

Dennis Golonka: Liz had the surgery the day after the Christmas party. I didn't have fear over it, because I really thought: ‘Oh, okay, she's dealing with this. She's getting treatment, and she'll be fine.’ And she came back a whole different person. She lost a lot of weight. She came back with a wig at first, and then one day [she] removed the wig and realized: ‘Oh, this pixie cut is really cute.’ Liz was a worker. She just came in with her beautiful personality, kept things light, did her job, and we accordingly, worked the same way.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: It was really interesting when Paul Cavaco [who served as Bazaar’s co-fashion director with Tonne Goodman] mentions how initially when Liz took over Bazaar she was dressed in effusive “Easter egg colors.” He convinced her to tone it down and adopt a more New York wardrobe characterized by “grey, navy and black.” And after Liz was diagnosed with cancer, she became very thin and wore Chanel. I remember witnessing all of that at the shows and just feeling so sad when I saw her. Here was this woman evolving her look, becoming more and more beautiful. But she was dying.

Cynthia True: It was totally tragic. But she would joke around a lot. She had this joke about the ‘cancer diet’ which again, was about making people comfortable, deflecting the reality of all of it.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: The other aspect of the series, which I found completely fascinating, is your exploration of Liz's relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales. What made their relationship so strong?

Dennis Golonka: Liz met Princess Diana early on, because she was consulting on her wardrobe.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: With Anna Harvey? (British Vogue’s Deputy Editor, Harvey was Princess Diana’s personal style advisor.)

Dennis Golonka: Yes. And it was almost a mother daughter relationship, and they were both taking care of each other. When Liz found out about the cancer, she shared [the news] with Princess Diana. [The Princess] would call, constantly checking in on her, and telling her: ‘This is your life and you need to do what's best for you.’

Cynthia True: They bonded over being mothers. They both had young sons of very similar age. Liz had remarkably good boundaries. She was probably the kind of person who made Diana feel safe. It was, after all, a professional arrangement, but there was an intimacy. And I think that [Princess Diana] really knew that she could truly trust [Liz] not to judge, not to gossip.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: I loved the moment in the series when Diana [asks to meet] the supermodels and [her hairstylist] Sam McKnight helps to set the whole thing up.

Cynthia True: Sam was such a great interview, and was so sweet to share those fun details. And what Linda Evangelista had to say about it too, is [how Princess Diana asked her]: ‘How do you guys do it?’

Bronwyn Cosgrave: Diana was a bit of a supermodel herself. She kind of created the red carpet, too.

Cynthia True: It was so funny that Princess Diana was looking at the [supers] and [asking]: ‘How do you do it?’

Bronwyn Cosgrave: I guess even when you're that beautiful and special - and your husband isn't telling you that, and you're around these stone cold people - it's hard to believe in what you have. How do you feel Diana's passing impacted Liz?

Cynthia True: It was horrible, the worst summer of Liz's illness. She [had] this awful reaction to [a] bone marrow transplant. And then, yeah, Gianni Versace [was assassinated] and then Diana died.

Dennis Golonka: That was just a lot of stuff all at once for her.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: What do you think made Fabien and Liz such an amazing team?

Cynthia True: They shared a visual language. Liz [was] charming. I think that she had a way that Fabien reacted very positively to.

Dennis Golonka: “They also both thought outside of the box. They took risks. Fabien did things that weren't happening. And Liz let him. She let him take a whole page and just do graphics on it. His photography choices - nobody knew David Sims or Mario Sorrenti [before he hired them]. He brought in new people. Vogue was too big in a way to take those risks. Harper's Bazaar could do it because they weren't strangled by their own brand. They suddenly had a big checkbook and a very unusual corporate attitude, which was: ‘Play. You [can] make this as cool as Italian Vogue.’ Liz was like a kid in a candy store. Fabien suddenly had this unbelievable platform to unleash innovations.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: So what's next for you both?

Cynthia True: We're working on new iterations of the podcast.

Bronwyn Cosgrave: What makes you good partners?

Dennis Golonka: Our friendship makes us good partners.

Cynthia True: It's the trust. The trust of being friends for 30 years. Dennis is like family to me. He's one of the three people in the world I would give my ATM number to. So that's huge!

Tune in here to Dennis Golonka and Cynthia True’s Blow Up: When Liz Tilberis Transformed Bazaar. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the show!