Enter Elegance

In 1992, Vogue was, as it is today, the global fashion authority, and Anna Wintour was its already-famous leader. But an upset—to this day, the only one of Wintour’s reign— was in the offing. Just a few days into the New Year, Hearst announced they were reviving the long-comatose Harper’s Bazaar, which was once Vogue’s greatest rival. And they were bringing in Liz Tilberis, the warm white-haired size-twelve editor of British Vogue—and Anna Wintour’s former second in command—to lead the charge. In “Enter Elegance,” we tell the story of the editorial dream team that Liz gathered to her side, the super-secret September launch, and the magazine cover that shook the industry and announced the new Nineties minimalism. 

This episode includes our memories as assistants at Liz Tilberis’s new Bazaar and conversations with former Bazaar staff, including creative director Fabien Baron and editors Paul Cavaco, Tonne Goodman, and Richard Sinnott. Plus, Linda Evangelista, Isaac Mizrahi, and Liz’s best friend, former Vogue creative director Grace Coddington.

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Transcript

 Fabien Baron 
She said, "I want to do the most beautiful magazine in the world."

Grace Coddington 
So I say, "You, you have to call Liz Tilberis. And I happen to know she's at home now because I've just put the phone down on her, and she's the best person, absolutely clearly the best person for you, for editor of Bazaar." 

Susan Magrino 
I mean, Vogue had really had no competitor for a very long time. 

Linda Evangelista 
I remember it feeling so special, and I knew that this new launch of Bazaar was going to be different. 

 
Tonne Goodman 
This was a risk that people were taking, but it was such an exciting risk. 

Fabien Baron 
To be honest, we gave such a good run to Vogue. 

Grace Coddington 
Everybody thought it was fabulous. You know, they thought, "This is really new." 

 
Susan Magrino 
When you go back to the Costume Institute, when you go back to the fact that they used to alternate, can you imagine that someone else used to be in charge of that? 

 
Paul Cavaco 
When you were working there, you didn't think you were changing anything. We were just working.

 
Richard Sinnott 
It changed my life, it changed my career, it changed who I am as a person. 

 
Fabien Baron 
Because the only thing you wanted to do...is to please Liz.

 
Dennis Golonka 
In 1992, Vogue was, as now, fashion's global bible, and Anna Wintour was, as now, its famous editor-in-chief, known at 42 years old as the Queen of Condé Nast. 

 
Cynthia True 
But an upset was in the offing. The long-comatose Harper's Bazaar, once Vogue's greatest rival, was about to be revived. Which is where our story begins.

 
Dennis Golonka 
I'm Dennis Golonka. 

 
Cynthia True 
I'm Cynthia True. Back in 1992, we were brand new assistants at Harper's Bazaar, and witnessed firsthand its remarkable return from newsstand oblivion to its former status as America's most innovative fashion magazine. 

 
Dennis Golonka 
The Nineties were the era of celebrity designers and supermodels. Magazines were at their peak influence, and suddenly, no magazine mattered more than Bazaar, a hip alternative to Vogue. 

 
Cynthia True 
This is Blow-Up: When Liz Tilberis Transformed Bazaar. You're listening to Episode One, "Enter Elegance." 

 
Liz Tilberis 
Harper's Bazaar was 125 years old when I took it over. There's a time in every magazine's history, particularly after 125 years, when something has to be done. And the company that own it, which is Hearst, decided that something had to be done at that particular point. So they just wanted to completely change the magazine. It happens. And so I was asked whether I would like to do it. It was a massive task. And I laid out a proposal and said to Hearst, you know, I would love to do it, this is what I need, this is what you're going to have to give me, this is how much it's going to cost. And they all said yes! Which was great! 

Dennis Golonka 
When Hearst Publishing announced on January 7, 1992, that Liz Tilberis, editor of British Vogue, was defecting to Harper's Bazaar, the headlines were global. Liz, after all, had been Anna Wintour's second-in-command just a few years earlier. 

Cynthia True 
The London Daily Express covered it with "Liz and Anna Wage Savage Frock War!" The Daily Mail announced, "Fashion Queens Fall Out!"

Susan Magrino 
I think that the press really saw, "Wow, this is really great." 

Cynthia True 
That's Susan Magrino, Liz's former publicist. Susan started out with Martha Stewart in 1983 and has worked with brands from Cuisinart to the Ritz Carlton to Christie's International. She also has a very glamorous Instagram. 

Susan Magrino 
Somebody had had the whole world to themselves, and suddenly someone else came along, and, you know, Vogue didn't like it. 

Cynthia True 
Harper's Bazaar and Vogue had been rivals for more than 100 years, stealing editors, photographers, and models from each other since Day One. But Bazaar had been pretty much dead since Diana Vreeland left in the Sixties. 

Susan Magrino 
I mean, Vogue had really had no competitor for a very long time. So when Claeys Bahrenburg, who was the president of Hearst Magazines at that time, made the decision to bring Liz in to revamp it and to really make it different and make it very fashion forward, there had been a lot of anticipation.

Cynthia True 
And, of course, Anna and Liz facing off in Chanel was a lot more exciting than your usual bald billionaires duking it out.

Susan Magrino 
Well, and two women who knew each other. And I think that's the other piece to this. You know, Anna was Liz's boss. 

Cynthia True 
Visually, they came across as yin and yang, both with blunt bobs, one white, one dark; one a size 12, the other a size sample; one known for her beaming smile, the other for hiding behind her sunglasses. 

Susan Magrino
The press just picked up on it because it was just, it was just delicious. I'm trying to think of what the analogy would be. You know, come on, it's Madonna and Gaga.

Dennis Golonka 
When Liz was appointed to resuscitate Bazaar, Anna's only comment to the press was, "The more British editors, the better." But Vogue immediately put the word out to all photographers and writers that if they worked for the new Bazaar, they'd never work for any Vogue publication ever again. 

Cynthia True 
Industry insiders predicted that not a single model would go near Liz Tilberis's new Bazaar. One former colleague of Liz's told the London Sunday Times, "Liz will find all the supermodels booked. Linda Evangelista for a cover? No way." 

Dennis Golonka 
Si Newhouse, Chairman of Condé Nast, even said publicly, quote, "We won't share." So everyone knew that by taking on Vogue, Liz was taking a big risk. Not only was she facing a talent embargo if Bazaar failed--and a lot of people thought it might--Condé Nast had told her she would never work at any of their publications again.

Cynthia True 
But Liz couldn't turn down Harper's Bazaar. It was hugely tempting to try bringing Bazaar back to its former glory. And Hearst was giving Liz total financial and creative freedom.

Grace Coddington 
She made very good deals with them, I think, where she could sort of take it the way she wanted. 

Dennis Golonka 
Grace Coddington, former creative director of Vogue, and Liz's best friend for more than twenty years.

Grace Coddington 
She didn't have to follow any guidelines or anything. She had quite a lot of freedom. And it was possible in those days. 

Cynthia True 
Grace was actually the one who had suggested Liz for the editorship of Bazaar. Although Grace worked for Vogue as Liz's dearest friend, she desperately wanted her to move to New York. 

Grace Coddington 
I had been trying to get Liz over to America because she was kind of sad without me, and I was certainly sad without her. 

Dennis Golonka 
As a student of fashion history, Liz had a deep respect for Bazaar's legacy. Bazaar was America's first fashion magazine and, historically, far more avant-garde than Vogue. Liz liked that Bazaar had been the first to show blue jeans worn with Balenciaga, the first to feature a young designer called Christian Dior, and the first to use Richard Avedon. 

Cynthia True 
After Hearst announced Liz's appointment on January 6, 1992, longtime editors at Harper's Bazaar were stunned. Nothing had changed at Bazaar since the Seventies. 

Dennis Golonka
Richard Sinnott was a sittings assistant at the old Bazaar.

Richard Sinnott 
Somebody got hold of some information. One of the fashion directors, who had been there since, I don't know, 1937, and she started scrambling around, running around, said, "The eclipse is coming! The eclipse is coming!" 

Cynthia True 
Aside from those directly affected, there were many in the business who quietly welcomed the news. Here's Isaac Mizrahi. 

Isaac Mizrazhi 
It didn't feel like this terrifying shake-up. It really didn't. It just felt like, kind of, the gods were kind of finally doing something right by appointing her. 

Dennis Golonka 
The stakes were enormous, but Liz tried to set that aside in the wake of Hearst's announcement, and almost immediately began commuting between London and New York. She took a suite at the Carlyle and started to assemble her dream team while her husband Andrew packed up their lives and two little boys, Robbie and Chris.

Cynthia True 
Liz told everyone she knew exactly what she was going to do with Bazaar. A dark secret, she jokingly called it. But many in the business wondered if a revived Bazaar would simply look like a derivative of Vogue. 

Dennis Golonka 
Former Bazaar Fashion Director Paul Cavaco. 

Paul Cavaco
We all had worked freelance for Condé Nast. None of us had worked really for Hearst. And Liz, obviously, was a Condé Nast girl from British Vogue, so we thought it's going to look somewhat like Condé Nast, because that's how we were all trained.

Cynthia True 
Just four days after Liz moved into her new corner office on the 37th floor of 1700 Broadway, New York Magazine ran a meticulously reported cover story by Michael Gross about Liz and Anna under the hot pink headline, "War of the Poses."

Dennis Golonka 
The story was based on Liz and Anna having just appeared together at Vogue's 100th anniversary party. It was the event of the season, and one Liz was slightly terrified to attend. On the other hand, she appreciated the invitation and posed smiling with Anna for photographer Bill Cunningham in the lobby of the New York Public Library. Liz knew it was great publicity for Bazaar.

Cynthia True 
The New York magazine story noted that there was a none-too-subtle excitement around Liz challenging Anna, and reported that before the Vogue event, the Lauders, as in Estée Lauder, had given Liz a pre-game cocktail party at Mortimer's, where Leonard Lauder hung a mock Bazaar cover featuring Liz. It also included the detail that a high-ranking Condé Nast exec, Bernie Lesser, a man Liz called her godfather, stopped in to pay tribute to her,

Dennis Golonka 
Even the big department stores took sides. Bloomingdale's honored Vogue's anniversary by lining their windows with mannequin Annas, complete with sunglasses.

Cynthia True 
The more upscale Saks Fifth Avenue celebrated Bazaar's 125th anniversary with window displays featuring live models acting out editorial meetings and shoots. They included a faux Liz Tilberis in a white wig.

Dennis Golonka 
While both women tried to play down the rivalry, with Anna claiming to have been one of the first to call and privately congratulate Liz, Liz told her inner circle there was no message from Anna. And just a few weeks after Liz's appointment, witnesses claimed that Anna and her top editors refused to acknowledge Liz at the couture previews in Paris. Which was especially awkward for Grace.

Grace Coddington 
They were always putting the two of them, you know, head-to-head. And very often in fashion shows, they would find themselves sitting opposite each other, and it was like, errrrr, you know, and I was going....ohhhhhh....waving.

Cynthia True 
One of Anna's top editors at the time said, "Anna put out the word: Destroy Harper's Bazaar at any cost. We were on a war footing."

Grace Coddington 
Yeah, she was mad when Liz went to Bazaar, of course, because they were very competitive. And not only they were, but the world made them competitive, too. 

Dennis Golonka  Competitive about writers, models, and designers. But the crux of the whole thing was the photographers. There were only a handful of fashion photographers in the world considered good enough to take on Vogue, and Vogue had three: Peter Lindbergh, Patrick Demarchelier and Steven Meisel. Liz said she had to have at least one of them. 

Cynthia True 
And she had a shot at it, because Vogue photographers at that time, even big ones, didn't have contracts. Liz also had an ace-in-the-hole. Months before, when Hearst first came calling, she had run into Patrick Demarchelier at Grace Coddington's in the Hamptons.

Dennis Golonka 
Patrick and Liz knew each other well. He had shot for her at British Vogue. He photographed the most beautiful and informal pictures of Princess Diana ever taken, such as the one of her sitting on the floor in a gown and tiara, laughing.  

Cynthia True 
Over dinner at Grace's, Patrick encouraged Liz to take the Bazaar job, and even said he might defect with her. 

Dennis Golonka
Patrick had one condition. He wanted Liz to bring on fellow Frenchman, 31-year-old creative director Fabien Baron, known for making Italian Vogue the most cutting-edge fashion magazine in the world. "If you can get Fab," he said, "I'll consider coming too."

Cynthia True 
Here's Fabien.

Fabien Baron 
A week before Liz called me, I got into this interview with--I don't remember even remember which magazine it was, but I remember precisely the question: "Is there a magazine out there that you know that you want to work for? You feel like working for a magazine at the moment?" And I started to think, that's right, you know, the only one that I can see that would be interesting, but it would have to be like full-on, would be Harper's Bazaar. And I remember really well what I said. "Harper's Bazaar for me is like Sleeping Beauty. That would be really interesting to come and we do Bazaar." A week later, I got the phone call from Liz Tilberis. "Would you be interested in working for Harper's Bazaar?" I said, "Oh, we have to meet." 

Cynthia True
Liz and Fabien met for lunch at a midtown Italian place near Hearst.

Fabien Baron
First thing I asked her is, like, "What would you like to do? Because I know what I would like to do, but what would you like to do?" She said, "I want to do the most beautiful magazine in the world." 

Dennis Golonka
And then how soon after that meeting did you start? 

Fabien Baron
Well, I didn't know if I had that job or not. I didn't even know if I was hired or not. I had to call her back. I said, "So what do you think, like, like, are we going to work together?" "Oh, yes, of course." 

Paul Cavaco
Fabien Baron, if people don't know who he is, is probably the most brilliant art director in the world.

Cynthia True
Paul Cavaco again. 

Paul Cavaco
You know, he can turn anything into something beautiful. So it didn't matter what your pictures were. Fabien would know exactly how to juxtapose them. He knew what type to put on it.

Dennis Golonka
Did you have a clear vision? 

Fabien Baron
Oh, yes, definitely, definitely. 

Cynthia True
What was that based on?

Fabien Baron
It was based on what the magazine used to be. And I said, we need to bring it back to where it was. 

Cynthia True
What Fabien meant was the famed era from 1934 to 1958 when one of his design idols, the legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch, led Bazaar to preeminence alongside Editor-in-Chief Carmel Snow and fashion editor Diana Vreeland. Fabien knew the moment was right for a comeback.

Fabien Baron
It was also at the time, like in in in New York, where I felt like, you know, things were stagnant. Like Vogue didn't have any competition, and all the magazines were kind of flat. And it was good timing, I guess. It was like perfect ti--It was at the time also where magazine had a real power. The magazines at that time were really about to explode into this huge business.

Dennis Golonka
Why was that, do you think? 

Fabien Baron
Because at the time, magazine were like what Instagram is today. They were social media of style at that time; it became THE tool for the industry, for the fashion industry, to communicate to the public.

Dennis Golonka
When Liz first called Fab, he was working on Madonna's highly anticipated photo book, Sex, with Steven Meisel, whom Liz desperately wanted for Harper's Bazaar. Paul Cavaco was working on the project too. Fab immediately zeroed in on him to come be Fashion Director.

Fabien Baron
I really, really, really wanted Paul, because he was very special.

Paul Cavaco
And he said, "I think you should come to Bazaar." And I said, "Well, I have, you know, my own company." He said, "I think you should leave and come to Bazaar." 

Cynthia True
Paul's company, Keeble Cavaco and Duka, was a fashion PR firm that handled labels like Versace America and Yoji Yamamoto, and produced fashion shows nationwide.

Paul Cavaco
And he said to me, 

Fabien Baron
You know what, Paul? You know, the train comes, the train stops at the station, and you go in the train, or you don't go in the train, but if you don't go in the train, you don't find out what you, what you're missing. 

Paul Cavaco
And, you know, I thought, okay, it's--Liz had been a fashion editor, so I knew she understood what it was to take a photograph.  And then, you know, it was Fabien, who was a brilliant art director. You know, I thought this is a perfect thing.

Dennis Golonka
By hiring Paul, Liz also avoided raiding Condé Nast's talent. Next, she drafted Tonne Goodman, who was a Fashion Director at Calvin Klein. Tonne was a former model who had been discovered by Vreeland. She had a crisp, modern sensibility that Liz adored, and it balanced well with Paul's dreamier aesthetic. Here's Tonne. 

Tonne Goodman
There was a change going on at Calvin Klein, and there was a, you know, kind of wildly exciting proposition that was coming to America with Liz. 

Cynthia True
Hiring two mega stylists like Paul and Tonne to be co-fashion directors was practically unheard of. Linda Evangelista was shocked when she heard they were going to share the job.

Linda Evangelista
If you could put two top editors in the world together on the same shooting, then....I mean, that's almost impossible. Think about doing that today, it would never work. Those two you could definitely put together and they...they were Team Liz.

Tonne Goodman
I really think that it's a very simple thing. I think that we--it's kind of, you know, just love. I mean, we both really love each other. And also, he's very funny. 

Dennis Golonka
Tonne and Paul even decided to share an office.

Paul Cavaco
We were so excited. I, of course, thought that I was going to work at--I had watched Funny Face about a million times, so I thought it was Quality magazine. Did you ever watch Funny Face with Avedon? You know...

Dennis Golonka 
Paul's talking about the 1957 musical starring Audrey Hepburn, set in the world of Quality magazine, inspired by Harper's Bazaar, with Fred Astaire's character modeled on Richard Avedon. And the answer is yes, many times. 

Announcer 
Funny Face is really funny, the bubbling story of a highbrow girl who falls into the clutches of a high-powered fashion magazine editor. And Fred's the carefree photographer who comes to her rescue.

Paul Cavaco
So I thought, oh, that's what we're going to have. And I don't know if you remember, like, the first day I got there, the place was in shambles. 

Dennis Golonka 
I don't really remember, because by the time Cynthia and I were hired as assistants a few months later, it was chic. 

Paul Cavaco 
The place looked terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. So I went around with my assistant. I had--my cousin came to be my assistant.

Cynthia True 
Paul's cousin, Elaine, had gone to F.I.T., and was a Singer Sewing Machine Contest finalist.

Paul Cavaco
And we walked around. I had--Elaine and I had baskets, like, well, garbage, the garbage we had the garbage baskets. I made everyone throw out all their pens that weren't black, all the staplers that weren't black, everything that wasn't black, I made them throw it out. We requisitioned all so that at least it would look uniform. 

Dennis Golonka
Richard Sinnott again.

Richard Sinnott
You know, when he came into Harper's Bazaar the first day, he's like, "No jeans, everyone wears black, no mixed colored pencils on your desk. This is the pencil holder you use."

Dennis Golonka
Yes, he told us. 

Richard Sinnott 
"This is the colored pencil you're gonna use," no--all of it. Mmm-hmm. And I was like, "Holy shit!" 

Dennis Golonka 
Paul had thoughts for Liz, too.

Paul Cavaco
When she got there, she was wearing all these, like Easter egg colors, Chanel suits. And I said to her, "Liz, we are not in England. You are in New York. You have to start wearing gray. Navy. Black. You need--you know, or camel. You need to go neutral, this is...

Cynthia True
Bad staplers and pastel separates weren't the only things being removed from the office. In March, while Liz was in Milan at the shows being seen with Fabien for the first time, Hearst cleaned house for her. It was said that Bazaar lifers were let go in 15-minute intervals. Liz felt bad about it but considered it a cruel necessity to revive a magazine stuck in a rut. 

Dennis Golonka
Actually, Liz said that it was from witnessing Anna inherit a quote "embittered staff" at British Vogue that she realized she had to start mostly fresh.

Paul Cavaco
...and they got rid of everybody. And I'm telling you, and I probably shouldn't say this, because--it's almost like everyone peed on their chairs when they found out! The chairs were all disgusting, so we had to get rid of all the chairs. I think it was just they were old and really dirty...so we had, like, black chairs, all, you know, and I wanted them to paint all the doors different colors, like they did in Funny Face, but they wouldn't, but they wouldn't do it for us. But we were all excited. We thought, this is is going to be fabulous. 

Dennis Golonka
A few Bazaar staffers did survive, like Richard, who became one of Liz's inner circle. 

Richard Sinnott
I had no fear I was going to be let go. I maybe was just blind, but I wasn't really scared until I met Paul Cavaco, who I love and respect. You know, it was time to get serious when Liz and her crew came in.

Cynthia True
Liz's crew, principally Fabien, Paul, and Tonne, had long conversations about how to reference Bazaar's glorious past.

Paul Cavaco
Fabien was like the new Brodovitch. It was very inspired by that. Tonne and I were inspired by the shoots during that time period, you know. And so we tried to modernize all of it, but make it somehow a nod to the heritage, so that there was a continuity rather than a sort of full redoing of it.

Fabien Baron
Yes, of course, definitely, like Brodovitch, to me, was like a master at what he does, at what he did, and I had seen his work. I'd seen some of his spreads in, in magazines and things, but I didn't study him. I mean, my big thing talking to the editors and everything: "We have to do something modern. We have to do something modern. We cannot, we cannot look back. We have to be careful when we do retro stories, we really have to be careful. Let's move forward. Let's go forward. Let's push. Let's push." 

Dennis Golonka
Liz and Fabien knew their debut cover, in particular, had to be stunning, the kind of image that would announce a new age. 

Cynthia True
Fortunately, Patrick Demarchelier was ready to officially join Bazaar. Liz went to his New York apartment with his contract in hand. She said he was so nervous about leaving Vogue, he had to lie down while he signed. 

Dennis Golonka
Now that they had Patrick, they decided to go for Linda Evangelista. Linda was emerging as the model's model with an otherworldly bone structure and a new bob that was both modern and old glamour. But Linda was a Vogue girl. 

Paul Cavaco
In the Seventies when you worked, the models could only work at Vogue or Bazaar. The minute you went to Bazaar, you may no longer be a Vogue girl.

Fabien Baron
I remember that we did fight like crazy to get Linda on the cover. That was a big deal.

Cynthia True
What was the fight with? The agency? 

Fabien Baron
Of course, it was all like about the, you know, like, "You're not going to use the model that American Vogue is using....Linda, she's not going to work for Bazaar."

Linda Evangelista
I forgot about the Vogue element.

Dennis Golonka
The truth was, if Linda did appear on the cover of the debut issue, there was a strong possibility that Condé Nast might retaliate, especially because they continued to battle Vogue over photographers. Politely.

Fabien Baron
Of course, at first, when there was nobody, like, you know who's going to come? You know, I had to go and convince the photographers, the editors, I had to go and convince everyone to come to Bazaar. I almost convinced Steven Meisel to come over.

Dennis Golonka
But Meisel was the biggest photographer of the decade, the favorite of the Trinity: Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington. And Condé Nast was very serious about keeping him. He ultimately stayed. Here's Grace again.

Grace Coddington
Yeah, it wasn't any loyalty to American Vogue. It was all about Italian Vogue, that he had a complete freedom to do whatever he liked, and it was an amazing time for him of creativity. 

Cynthia True
Liz was disappointed about not getting Meisel, especially when Fabien had gotten so close, and she meant to nail down Peter Lindbergh, the dashing German photographer whose work had a romantic quality Liz loved.

Dennis Golonka
Lindbergh lived in Paris, and Liz decided to go see him personally. But at JFK, as she waited to board the Concorde, she ran into Condé Nast Chairman Si Newhouse at the gate. Liz knew he was racing her to see Lindbergh. 

Cynthia True
But while Liz and Si chatted, Liz was calm with the knowledge that when they landed, she would be driving straight to a cafe on the Boulevard St. Germain, where Lindbergh would be waiting at an outdoor table to sign, over champagne and double kisses, the hefty contract that was in her black neoprene Prada bag.

Fabien Baron
She knew exactly what she was doing. She did it with like a velvet glove. She put all this talent together, in a way, and she built the best-looking magazine.

Dennis Golonka
Meanwhile, Linda, despite all predictions to the contrary, had finally said yes to appearing on the cover of the September issue.

Paul Cavaco
Which is, I guess, you know, to Anna's credit, I don't know how this even happened. She didn't put a stop to it.

Fabien Baron
And Linda, of course, she's like a warrior. And she said, "Of course, I'm gonna work for Bazaar. I do what I want!" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, so we got Linda, and I was like, Wow, big deal. So I said, we really have to nail a cover that is really exceptional. And Patrick was shooting the cover, and I remember, like, we came up with this idea of, like, doing something with the letter. I don't really remember who came--I think it's Paul Cavaco who came up with that idea.

Paul Cavaco
Steven Meisel, who was supposed to come to Bazaar, but didn't in the end, had said to me, "I think all the covers should have whoever the model is playing with the logo." Which is why the A is falling into her hand, you know, because the Sixties and Seventies of Bazaar were beautiful, especially the Sixties, so we wanted to give a nod to it. And there's several covers where the model is climbing up a ladder, putting the A back into the logo. So we thought, Well, this time we'll drop it into her hand. And--but it was Steven's sort of idea. And then, since he wasn't coming, I just stole it, quite honestly.

Fabien Baron
Anyway, it was definitely teamwork. Paul, I know, was the editor on that shoot. And it was quick. It was quick. Patrick is quick.

Dennis Golonka 
Here's Linda again.

Linda Evangelista
I felt like Patrick had, I don't know, he was, like, really into it, and he had that letter, and he had this like, you know, he was in on the concept, and he wasn't watching the Knicks game out of the corner of his eye, you know...

Cynthia True
Was that his usual? 

Linda Evangelista
Yes. He could shoot and watch the game, and depending on who he had in front of his lens, if he could trust them, he just let us do what we had to do, and then he'd say, "Okay, change." I'm going to tell you a lot of his photos happened that way! 

Dennis Golonka
Here's Tonne Goodman again. 

Tonne Goodman
Patrick had a, you know, a complete renaissance when he got to Harper's Bazaar. And that really is because of Paul. I think that the work that he did with Paul really opened up a whole new vista for him, because Paul had his own creative foresight and imagery that he wanted to see on the page.

Fabien Baron
The thing I remember is like, Paul had made the letter fake in cardboard for her to hold it. I said, "No, no, no, no. Just put the hand there. We can--we don't need the letter. I'll do it with the logo."

Dennis Golonka
This being 1992, there was, of course, no Photoshop, there was no manipulating an image on the computer. It was all done by hand. 

Cynthia True
Meanwhile, Liz's new team of editors and writers, several of whom were British transplants, lined up stories meant to announce Bazaar's arrival as the thinking woman's magazine. There was Brooke Shields making her journalistic debut with an essay about Marguerite Duras, a companion travel piece about Vietnam, where her book The Lover is set, an article about the neglect of women in medical research, and a beauty feature that asked, "Why wear makeup at all?" 

Paul Cavaco
I think we wanted to crush it because we knew that we had all taken a risk here. Liz had moved her entire family from London. You know, Tonne had given up her job at Calvin Klein; you know, I had left my company. So, all of us had taken a risk. You know, knowing that, you know, worst came to worst, we would all get freelance jobs, because it was--that era had a lot of freelance going on. So we were not that nervous about money, but more about, you know, if you fail at it, what's that going to do to your spirit?

Cynthia True
Susan Magrino found Liz surprisingly relaxed in the Hamptons as they wrapped up production on the first issue.

Dennis Golonka
Liz said that the full impact of the high-stakes game she was playing didn't hit her until Susan was offered a bribe to release an advance copy of the magazine. They even had to send extra security to guard the printing plant in Kentucky.

Susan Magrino
The thing that I will never forget was when that issue, which typically comes out--what is it the second or third week of August? Any September issue? So she was rushing to get it finished in July and truly expected to go off to the home in the Northwest Woods and then return. I will never forget that. And I was like, "This is New York. We don't take the summers off! What do you think you're doing out in the Hamptons? You know, until--you know, we're about to begin a war here! You know, what are you kidding me?"

Cynthia True 
Before the magazine was bound, the final page proofs, meaning the loose pages of the issue printed in full color, arrived at the office. Fabien took them to show Liz at her Hamptons house, and they spread them out to look at the total of their first issue, including their hard-won cover.

Dennis Golonka
What made the shot of Linda, head tilted up, the A falling into her hand, really pop was the fact that the magazine had a snow-white background, the black Bazaar logo, and just one cover line: Enter the Era of Elegance. 

Paul Cavaco
You know, the whole sort of cleanness of it was Fabien. That was his whole thing, was how topography really works with photographs, and what's going to actually stop you and look at a photograph. 

Fabien Baron
I mean, it was like a confluence of the right people all as a team with the right photographers and the right look and the right packaging.

Dennis Golonka
Richard, when you saw that September cover, did you realize, "Oh yeah, we just did something big?" 

Richard Sinnott
I stole three of them, and I still have them, and I remember thinking, holy shit, because I had never really been exposed to that kind of talent. 

Dennis Golonka
Here's Linda again.

Linda Evangelista
I remember buzz. I remember everybody excited about this new magazine. I mean, everybody was so positive and excited about it, knowing that it was going to give the other magazines a run for their money, and knowing that it was going to be on the more artistic side. To have something like that in America--we always had to go to Europe to have editorial pictures that were artistic. 

Cynthia True
The September issue's newsstand sales were nearly double that of previous issues. Advertising pages doubled too, evident from the magazine's new heft. Those who had voiced their doubts pre-launch went quiet in the face of the exquisite Bazaar cover splashed all over town.

Dennis Golonka
The first time I saw that cover was in the East Village. It was splashed across the side of a bus. I was mesmerized immediately. There was something about it. I rushed back to my apartment, faxed off my resumé. I knew I had to work there. It's so crazy because I remember it like it was yesterday.

Cynthia True
Here's Isaac Mizrahi again.

Isaac Mizrazhi 
You know, I mean, I'll tell you what. I love that cover. That's such a great cover. It's an iconic picture. And, and what's great about that picture is that it represents something about the magazine, right? Which is more than just sort of, I don't know what--like, Vogue is very, very straightforward about it. It's a business, you know, like, "We got to sell the dresses," right? And I don't know what about that cover just doesn't talk about that. That cover, you see a look in her eye, and you go like, "This is about like, really smart kind of fashion being spoken about on another level."

Dennis Golonka
Inside the magazine, Christy Turlington looked like a 1940s movie star, but somehow modern in simple, fitted silhouettes. And then a few pages further in, there was the biggest story of the well: Ten pages that showcased a brand-new British face, Kate Moss, in a colored-drenched Patrick Demarchelier shoot that paid tribute to Sixties London. Kate had been modeling since age 14, but this was her first appearance in an American magazine. 

Cynthia True
The bookings editor, Sarah Foley, who discovered Gia in the Eighties, had Moss on her radar when she arrived at Bazaar and showed her pictures to Paul Cavaco. 

Paul Cavaco
It was the first issue, and I was, you know, doing this one studio shoot with Patrick, and I was looking for someone. And she said, "Have you seen this girl?" 

Cynthia True 
Sarah had a book that belonged to Mario Sorrenti, who was a model and an emerging photographer. He'd taken a bunch of photos of his girlfriend, Kate. 

Paul Cavaco 
He didn't have the money to print them, so he would take the contact sheets and cut them out and write on them and stuff. And that became the scrapbook. But Sarah Foley shows her to me. I said, "I've seen her." And she said, "Steven Meisel just photographed her. Call him and see what he thought." So I called Steven. He said, "The face is glorious, but she's tiny. Just know that." So we--you know, for the clothes. Again, fortunately, I had my cousin, the Singer sewing machine finalist so she could sew anyone into anything! 

Dennis Golonka
Calvin Klein was so impressed with the first issue that he reached out to Fab about working with him, too.

Fabien Baron
It all, it all happened at the same time. 

Cynthia True
Oh wow. 

Fabien Baron
It all happened exactly at the same time, like I was building the first issue, Calvin called me. And then he saw the first issue, and he called me again. Then we started to do, to do things. That's how I introduce Kate Moss to him. 

Cynthia True
Oh, wow, you introduced Kate Moss to him? 

Fabien Baron 
Yeah, with Patrick, yeah. 

Dennis Golonka 
Fab had met 19-year-old Moss at that first shoot for Bazaar. Now Calvin Klein wanted to use her for his Obsession campaign. Fab had an idea. 

Cynthia True 
You're the one who sent Kate Moss and Mario Sorrenti away with a camera for the weekend, right? 

Fabien Baron
Yes. Because, like, for Obsession, you know, like I was thinking, like, What can we do for Obsession? What can we do for Obsession? Calvin really wanted Kate, and I said, "But the best thing to do, Calvin, I mean, to be honest, like those two, they're crazy about each other, Mario Sorrenti...and they really crazy about each other. The best way to do, like, you know, send them on a vacation, like, you know, for a week, give them a camera and let him come back with pictures." And that's exactly what happened. Nobody came to the shoot, no hair, no makeup, and just the two of them. 

Cynthia True
It was the start of a twenty-year collaboration in which Fabien served as Calvin Klein's creative director. His deal with Hearst allowed Fabien to do it all.

Dennis Golonka
About a month after the debut issue hit the stands, Cynthia and I started as assistants at Bazaar.

Cynthia True
I was in Fashion Features. Dennis was in the art department. We started the same day. 

Dennis Golonka
We met at orientation.

Cynthia True
And I think we were both fully aware that we had fallen into a Moment. 

Dennis Golonka
The excitement about the first issue was still huge. Everyone in New York was talking about it. 

Cynthia True
Right. And even if you were more Urban Outfitters than Armani, like us, it was obvious you were working with the best of the best. And they had pulled off this big thing, and everybody knew it, and they were fully confident they were going to keep it going.

Fabien Baron
The art department became a little bit like a pub. Photographers always showing up, so we put the darts up. 

Dennis Golonka
Oh, right, the darts!

Cynthia True 
Oh, I remember your dartboard.

Fabien Baron 
Oh yeah! You know, and they would bring beer, and then it was all British, like, you know, David Sims would come up and play darts, and like, we have beer, and like, you know, then Glen Luchford would show up, and boom. And then we were playing more darts. And then Terry Richardson would come up. And then, you know, playing more darts. I mean, to the point playing darts with every single photographer most of the day. We had--the wall was covered with darts. You know, it was, like, covered and like, and Liz was saying, like, "Come on, guys, you gotta..." You know, the layouts we didn't like, we started putting the layouts we didn't like, like, shooting the pictures, or the models that did--you know, there was not a great picture like, bam! We were shooting the pictures....like we did play so much.

Richard Sinnott 
You were there when I did a runway on the table and $9,000 worth of damage? 

Dennis Golonka 
Yes! Yes! It was uh uh, the, um 

Richard Sinnott 
Lucky Cheng downstairs. 

Dennis Golonka 
The drag queen place, Lucky Cheng's! 

Richard Sinnott 
Lucky Cheng's

Dennis Golonka 
Lucky Cheng's. 

Richard Sinnott
Yup. Yup.  Everybody kept saying, "Richard, Richard, runway, runway, runway!" 

Dennis Golonka
Yes. Yes. 

Richard Sinnott
I'm like, No no, no, no, no, no. Too many people I don't want to do it on call. I only do it when I want to do it. No, no, no, no, no. And then "Runway, runway, runway!" And I don't know, there was like Dennis said, it was a big, like a wedding reception table, and they kept saying it. And I was just like, Okay! I hopped up on the table filled with dishes, and [CRASH, CRASH] I did a runway. I spun the corner [CRASH CRASH]

Dennis Golonka 
Lucky Cheng's is New York's longest-running drag cabaret and restaurant. It was Richard Sinnott's thirtieth. We had a whole room downstairs, and they set up these tables, all connected in a big square.  Wine glasses falling, dishes crashing...

Richard Sinnott 
Yeah. And I did a really good job. I was doing Kirsty Hume and [CRASH]--'cause, you know, she lifted that leg--she, she did a trot, like a horse, and I had to, to get over those plates

Dennis Golonka
He trotted...

Richard Sinnott
And every, you know, I think someone got cut in the face and, and I, all I, all everyone knew was, it was a lot of fun. And then it turns out, no one said a word to me. And it, I think, like Fabien wrote a check for like $9000 for the damages, or Liz did--

Dennis Golonka
Fabien. Fabien paid for it. Fab, it was Richard's 30th birthday party. Do you remember? 

Fabien Baron
Oh, yes, oh my God, 

Dennis Golonka
When he walked on the tables and did the runway? 

Fabien Baron
Yes, of course. I mean, Richard, he was the mascot. He was amazing, Richard. What a fun guy that was!

Richard Sinnott
Like, I never got, I never got--no one ever said, "Richard, you know, that was inappropriate, and you caused damage that Harper's Bazaar was responsible for." They're like, "HOW much for that?" Yeah, yeah.

Dennis Golonka 
Yeah. "No problem. It's your birthday." Honestly, it was kind of an open checkbook environment, and that's hard to fathom today. We had expense accounts and Prada discounts. And back then, the senior editors had their own cars and drivers waiting at the curb all day. 

Richard Sinnott
We would need clothes in a hurry, and good clothes. Chanel. Paris. And Liz was like, Who do we send over to go get this dress? And someone said, "Oh, Richard Sinnott has a boyfriend in Paris." So every weekend, like every other week or something, Liz goes, "Oh, will you go pick up this dress?" I'm like, "Yeah, sure," you know, and I'd fly first-class, get the dress, have caviar, foie gras, champagne, fly back. "Here's the dress!"

Cynthia True 
It helped a lot, of course, that the spending added up to Harper's Bazaar unexpectedly winning two Ellies, aka National Magazine Awards, in April, just eight months after Liz's first issue. Hearst was pleasantly shocked.

Dennis Golonka
Claeys Bahrenburg had told Liz and Fab not to expect too much. He said it was an intellectual crowd, but we won in both the design and photography categories.

Cynthia True
Liz and Fab rode back to the office together, screaming all the way and waving their Ellies out the window. 

Dennis Golonka
Hearst took out full-page congratulatory ads in the New York Times. Here's Susan Magrino again.

Susan Magrino
Winning the Ellies, the magazine award, that was huge. I also think that, you know, with all due respect to, you know, George Lois and Henry Wolf and all of the other great creative directors of Bazaar in the past, and Melvin Sokolski, I think that, you know, she, she really brought that back and really elevated, you know, the importance of graphic design and the importance of photography. And you'd wait. Remember how you'd be so excited? Oh my god, I got the new issue! Nobody's going out tonight!

Cynthia True
Liz was the toast of New York, not just because Bazaar was white-hot, but because people really liked her and wanted her and her artist husband, Andrew, at their parties and benefits.

Susan Magrino 
They were just so charming, and it was so lovely to witness their embracing of New York and New York embracing them. And it was just so exciting, and what a wonderful time. I remember the townhouse on, I think it was East 88th Street?

Dennis Golonka
Liz and Andrew rented it from the director Mike Nichols. It was a brownstone with a triple-height atrium, and it had these huge windows that opened onto a garden with a koi pond.

Cynthia True
Liz's professional and personal life was almost unimaginably good. She was excited to celebrate her best year by throwing a Christmas party for 250 people at her home. She recalled later the limos that lined her entire block that night. She took in the double roaring fireplaces, the massive tree with tiny feathered robins, and the Moroccan tent in the garden. 

Dennis Golonka 
One of my big memories from that night was walking in the door. I remember Liz standing and greeting each one of us as we entered, and she had something different to say to every one of us. For me, she told me how handsome I had looked. When I came in, there were white poinsettias all over the place. I remember there was food being passed left and right. And also, she just looked so beautiful. I think she was wearing a plum gown, and she just smiled all night long. And then the celebrities and the designers that were there, I mean, it was Calvin Klein, it was Ralph Lauren, it was Donna Karan, Grace Coddington, of course, the models of the moment. It was just spectacular.

Cynthia True
What no one knew was that two days before, Liz had been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. She had told doctors that surgery would have to wait until the day after her party.

Dennis Golonka
The only guest she told was Grace.

Grace Coddington
Yeah, that was a terrible night. That was, I mean, I was in shock after that because we had the whole party, and everybody was laughing and drinking and and I was just about to go, and she pulled me on one side and into the bedroom, and she said, "I just have to tell you this. Um... I have cancer, and it's a bad one."

Dennis Golonka
The rest of us were told shortly after. There was a meeting in the office where we were told what was going on. I just remember that we were told she's going to be gone for a while, that she was gonna be getting treatment. We were also told not to speak about it. I wasn't worried. I thought, she's gonna be fine. She's getting treatment, and she's going to come back, and everything's going to be just...just as it was.

Fabien Baron
Why yes, you want the happy outcome. But like, you know, it was always the question mark in my head. And, you know, that was one more reason for me to deliver, you know, like the most beautiful magazine, and that's what I really tried to do for her. 

Dennis Golonka
On the next episode, we get to know the real Liz Tilberis, a woman who was not just Anna Wintour's saintly polar opposite, but a highly skilled strategist with quite a competitive streak. And a bit of MI6 training.

Cynthia True
We'll also talk to Princess Diana's former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, and her hairdresser, Sam McKnight, about the close bond between Liz and Diana and to Linda Evangelista about a secret breakfast meeting they all had in the British Vogue days.

Dennis Golonka 
We hope you'll join us. Thank you for listening. 

Cynthia True 
Blow-Up is hosted and produced by Dennis Golonka and me, Cynthia True. It was written by me, Cynthia True. Editing and mix, Clay Hillenburg. Original theme song, Stephen Phillips. Sound design, Erik Wiese. The episode was recorded at VoiceTrax West, Digital Arts New York, and the Cutting Room. Special thanks to Clay Morrow and Matthew Saver.