The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine (6 page)

BOOK: The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine
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The two beauty stories I shot that week in New York ultimately did produce covers and both taught me a great deal. One, with model Daniela Pestova, was a triumph. The shot was upbeat and she was reader-friendly, in that she was able to appear glamorous yet approachable. I had even managed to magically choose the right earrings to match the Simona silk blouse. (Styling on my own was always hit and miss.) It was one of our biggest-selling covers ever.

The other cover was taken from an arty black-and-white hair story I did with a humorless Swedish photographer, who was very talented but incredibly arrogant. He studiously ignored me all day on the shoot, conferring only with the surly British makeup artist who kept calling me Kylie on purpose, despite me correcting her umpteen times. The pictures were gorgeous, the model resonating with a vintage glamour not unlike that of Marlene Dietrich. A shot of her wearing long, black satin gloves was chosen for the next cover. I was on a roll. What a triumph! Kirstie took on New York and won! Was Australia big enough for me now?

But the black-and-white glamour cover was a complete flop with readers. Sales were dismal. And thus I learned the lesson that is an editor’s greatest truism: you are only ever as good as your last cover.

3
THE BUSINESS OF BEAUTY

B
y the early nineties I had become the beauty editor, a position that afforded me many glamorous experiences. “Beauty” is great training ground for an editor-in-chief, because it’s intrinsically commercial. I don’t think I’m revealing state secrets when I say we were there to help an advertiser sell their moisturizer. Fashion is much more subjective, and emotional, whereas the health and beauty area is more logical. Bearing in mind that my job was to rationalize spending $1,300 on a face cream. That’s logic,
Vogue
-style.

I was expected to give our advertisers coverage in the magazine, of course, but I also had free reign to promote anything I desired. Our Melbourne fashion editor Sandra Hirsh telephoned me one day and mentioned that she knew a young girl, Poppy King, who had a small lipstick line I might like to take a look at. Poppy came in to see me, a tiny eighteen-year-old blonde with alabaster skin and the darkest matte red lips I’d ever seen outside Kabuki theater. She had come up with the idea of seven super-matte dark red and brown lipsticks that contained double the pigment you could find in other lipsticks. You couldn’t find the shades at other companies, certainly not with the dramatic impact of her lip colors. Poppy showed me a few worse-for-wear samples, which she pulled out of a small makeup bag. I thought the idea was genius, and that she was certainly her own best publicity angle. I called to set up an appointment with the beauty buyer at David Jones and of course wrote a piece in
Vogue
. The rest is history, as the Poppy lipstick brand became an enormous success both here and in the United States. That’s the sort of impact that editorial with a real and honest angle can make.

The late eighties and early nineties were heady times for international beauty companies, who were spending big on launches and press trips. At one very extravagant lunch at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, for the launch of an at-home hair color, I was seated next to the taciturn managing director who was clearly bored out of his brain and mentally calculating how much this was costing him, as the beauty editors were showered with champagne, gifts and themed desserts. After numerous speeches, videos and live models displaying their shiny beautiful locks he turned to me and said, “Don’t you think all of this is just stupid?” I was taken aback for a moment, because I thought, “Yes, it is a gigantic waste of time,” but I was enjoying myself immensely. What I actually said, however, was: “Well, the amount of money, planning and effort that has gone into this event clearly demonstrates how important this product launch is on your marketing calendar, and is a good indication as to how much editorial you will be expecting us to produce for you.” Which is the truth. The beauty editor just happens to be in the very fortunate position of having all this largesse rain down on her personally, while the implicit business agreement takes place.

It was his turn to look taken aback, but he agreed with me. He resigned not long after. Chatting to twenty-something beauty editors while they scarfed down cream cakes at lavish lunches clearly wasn’t his thing.

I loved writing beauty copy, because a degree of wit and ingenuity is required to make an eye shadow palette sound exciting to the reader. It became slightly more challenging when advertisers had an expectation of a two-thousand-word article on a night serum. This is another tacit commercial exchange: you interview someone from their “laboratory” and then produce an article insinuating that the cream may miraculously change the molecular structure of skin and resist gravity. The hugely powerful Estée Lauder Group was
Vogue
’s biggest advertiser, and early on in my beauty editorship I was “Laudered.” They created the benchmark on how to do things with style, and happily that company does have a state-of-the-art research facility, so there was real science to draw on.

In 1992 I was flown to New York, collected by limousine at the airport and whisked into a top hotel uptown, near the Lauder offices on Fifth Avenue. I checked into my suite to discover bags and bags of expensive lotions and potions, perfume and makeup waiting for me. There were tickets to The Frick Collection and The Whitney Museum on the desk, and a huge wooden box filled with exotic fruits from “The Fruit of the Month Club.” I was informed by handwritten note on a thick, creamy card that dinner was booked at the renowned restaurant Daniel that evening, where I would be joined by a Lauder representative.

The following day I visited the plush Lauder corporate offices, housed in the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue. I met and chatted with the lovely Evelyn Lauder, the wife of Estée’s son Leonard, in the “Lauder” rooms which were floral and feminine, with blue sofas and drapes, fine china teacups, pretty flowers and silver bowls. I was then taken to the Clinique offices where everything was white and minimal, and I was given a notepad with pale-green pencils and a glass of chilled water. Afterwards we moved on to Prescriptives,
which was the new whizz-bang brand in their stable, its personality reflected in the matte-grey surrounds and the modernist coffee mugs. The New West rooms (an Estée Lauder line that has since folded) were all Santa Fe, with cactuses and bright colors. I was waiting for them to break out the tequila.

The attention to detail, the manners, and the professionalism was mind-blowing. I knew I was at the center of one of the truly great American companies. I was “Laudered” many times over the years, but I have never forgotten that first one. After my office visit, I was taken to lunch at the uptown Cipriani by Rebecca McGreevy, Lauder’s senior vice president of PR, an impeccable Southern woman in her sixties who was charm personified. At one point during the meal she said calmly, “I have a rather big surprise for you. Estée Lauder is going to join you and me for afternoon tea later today at The Plaza.”

My jaw dropped. Estée Lauder was elderly and reportedly in poor health. She had not made a public appearance for quite some time. To be given the opportunity to meet the legendary Estée herself was extraordinary. I rushed back to my room after lunch and hurriedly prepared a list of questions, and changed my clothes three times. I was going to meet Estée Lauder for heaven’s sake, the founder of the company, an icon: everything had to be perfect.

I arrived on the appointed hour at The Plaza, and could see Mrs. Lauder and Rebecca seated at a table behind the palm fronds on the ground floor. An orchestra was playing “The Way We Were.” Rebecca made the introductions and I sat down nervously, almost dumbstruck. Mrs. Lauder had broken her arm, and she was wearing an Hermès scarf as a sling.

The high tea arrived, and I helped Mrs. Lauder to arrange some tiny scones with jam and cream on her plate. She was rather frail, certainly,
but vibrant. She suddenly turned to me and said, “Here, here. You need some more lipstick.” She reached into her handbag, pulled out a red lipstick and applied it to my lips. “Yeah, I like that color on you better,” she said in her strong New Yorker accent, satisfied. I had to agree it was, in fact, an improvement. Apparently it was an old trick from when she first started out selling cosmetics on the department store floor, and she still loved doing it. She was fabulous, and had a great sense of humor, so I recounted to her my own Estée Lauder anecdote.

I had always worn Youth Dew perfume, a particularly strong and spicy Lauder scent. A previous boyfriend had loved the way it smelled on me. He then dumped me for another woman and I was devastated. He had the nerve to call a few weeks later. I thought he was ringing to confess he’d made a dreadful mistake in leaving me, but he just wanted me to return a navy-blue cashmere overcoat he had left at my house. Sobbing, I poured an entire bottle of Youth Dew Bath Oil over the lining of the coat, because that stuff is so pungent no amount of dry-cleaning would ever, ever remove the smell. Thankfully I don’t think I came off as too much of a bunny boiler because Mrs. Lauder and Rebecca laughed at my story. I still can’t visit New York and not make a mental connection to Mrs. Lauder and that wonderful company. To me, they are inseparable.

Not long afterwards the Lauder group extended a surprise invitation to
Vogue Australia
to attend the launch of new skincare treatment, Fruition, in the United Kingdom two days later. I had no idea what awaited; I had been given no itinerary.

I was collected at Heathrow by a uniformed chauffeur who bundled me into a sparkling new Bentley and delivered me to the astonishingly grand Cliveden House country hotel in Berkshire, a rendezvous favored by the rich and powerful for over three hundred years. It was
also the backdrop for the John Profumo/Christine Keeler political scandal in the early sixties. I couldn’t wait to see the pool house which had played a starring role in that story. As I was checking in, I was informed that since I had come further than any other journalist I had been given the Lady Astor Suite. This tyranny of distance would ironically prove to be a great bonus for many years to come. I was always kindly given the best room in the house because of the miles traveled. Little did anyone know, the long haul flight from Australia to anywhere has never bothered me, and in fact I find it quite relaxing. I have always refused to suffer from jet lag in order to not miss out on any potential experience waiting on the other side. Surely you can talk yourself out of being tired if the option that night is a glittering formal dinner by the fireplace in the Great Hall, which, as it happened, was the plan for the evening.

The palatial Lady Astor Suite afforded a sweeping view of the manicured gardens. As I threw open the huge doors and stepped onto the terrace, I noticed gardeners below atop spindly wooden ladders, clipping topiary trees into precise formations. After showering and changing, I rushed down the great staircase and outside, enjoying the crunch of gravel under my boots. A late afternoon fog had crept in and was curling around the trees. I nodded hello to one of the gardeners and in my imagination he doffed his tweed cap and said “Good evening, Milady.” I was in heaven. Pity I hadn’t packed any D. H. Lawrence novels. And to think, thirty hours before I’d been in a fluorolit office in Greenwich, Sydney, writing captions.

Perhaps I indulged my passion for the Gothic a little too much because when I returned to my suite after an abundant dinner, I became convinced there was a ghost in my room. I swear the cold tap in the bathroom turned itself on noisily twice during the night. I spent the night sitting up in bed with the bedclothes clutched around my
shoulders, terrified, but thankfully the night cream I had been gifted was some comfort. These things tend to cancel each other out.

I will never forget the time when in another gesture of extreme generosity, Shiseido invited Karin and me to travel together to Japan to better understand the breadth of their phenomenal business. Apart from the many cosmetic and toiletry brands in the group, Shiseido also has investments in fine dining restaurants, especially French. As it transpired Karin, who was always a finicky eater anyway, had just fallen pregnant with her first child. Understandably, she did not want to eat raw food or anything too exotic, as she was feeling slightly queasy. But our strictly planned itinerary had us booked in to eat at the top fine dining restaurants in Tokyo, both Japanese and French. Every meal, lunch and dinner alike, was a ten-course degustation menu at the very least, containing smoke, foam and random slimy surprises from under the sea. The Japanese are the most gracious and attentive hosts in the world, but the combination of tradition, propriety and a rigid timetable meant there was no room for, “Could we please just skip it and order some fries?”

Poor Karin couldn’t eat a bite. Not wanting to offend as guests, but understanding that she was feeling bilious at the mere idea of coddled sea urchin, I ate for Australia, to cover up the fact that Karin was eating nothing. It put me off degustation for life. For all my years as a
Vogue
editor clients assumed I was a foodie, but I’m really much happier with a pork chop and some spinach.

I hoovered my way through four days of non-stop, I’m-not-quite-sure-what food and wine in Tokyo, until we ended up in the incredible Kimono Museum in Kyoto. After being draped with layer upon layer of antique ceremonial kimonos, accessorized with a fetching obi, I regarded myself in the mirror and discovered I was a not dissimilar size to Mount Fuji.

On another occasion, Shiseido organized a launch in Penang, Malaysia, a somewhat inexplicable destination for a beauty launch given the almost unbearable humidity. A number of beauty journalists were sent to spend time with the creative director and master perfumer Serge Lutens, an impenetrable Frenchman who can’t—or won’t—speak English and loathes interviews: always a challenge. He also refused to take off his super-snug, black wool suit, so all I recall from the experience is perspiration (him), frizzy hair (me), and the realization I’d have to craft something really clever to produce a good story.

BOOK: The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine
11.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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