When magazines were empires
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
There was a glorious, extravagant, economically irrational period when magazines didn't merely report on culture, they dictated it. Children born after 2005 think Vanity Fair is a website with a paywall. They have absolutely no concept of the institution it once was.
A 300-page issue wasn't an event. It was every 15th of the month..
Under Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair wasn't run like a publication. It was run like a benevolent monarchy with an unlimited expense account. The payroll was legendary. Editors had editors. Writers had researchers. Researchers had assistants. There were so many masthead names you needed an intermission to finish reading them. Every department seemed overstaffed, overfunded, and overqualified. Writers were lounging at the Chateau Marmont peaking around planters, martini in hand, just waiting for the next story to write from their suite.
And somehow...it worked. Because the money wasn't disappearing into consultants, "growth strategists," and engagement dashboards. It was buying excellence. It was paying for the best writers in America. It was buying the best photographers in the world, and it was documenting (maybe for months on end) the best stories you will ever know and photographing them into museum pieces.
Annie Leibovitz didn't show up with an iPhone and a ring light.
Mario Testino wasn't creating "content."
Herb Ritts didn't ask whether the shoot would perform well on social media and Bruce Weber wasn’t sending over zip drives.
Entire productions were mounted with the ambition of Hollywood films. Sets were built. Locations scouted. Stylists, art directors, hair, makeup, lighting crews…the whole magnificent circus assembled to create images that people remembered for decades instead of double-tapping before forgetting thirty seconds later.
Last months hard copy issue of Vanity Fair was thinner than Bidens hair and printed on 78 pages of recycled “I Don’tknowwhat”. Sad.
In fashion, we're told a teenager with a selfie stick has "disrupted the industry." Back in the day, Vogue's September issue wasn't a magazine. It was a piece of furniture.
Six hundred pages worth and sometimes more.
Nearly half the pages were advertising and that was exactly the point. Brands would design seasonal spreads just for the issue. Ralph Lauren used to call them “movies”, a 15-20 page full bleed phototorial that had you searching your grandparents attic for artifacts within minutes. Ralph (as he still does, but to a lesser extent) created a lifestyle on paper that a reader could sink into and Vogue responded with all the ass-kissing it could muster.
Those advertisements were the business model that financed extraordinary journalism, breathtaking photography, and editors who had both taste and authority.
Luxury brands knew something today's marketers often overlook, not everything that drives demand shows up in a dashboard.
Those advertisements themselves were art. No pop-ups. No autoplay videos. No cookies and no algorithm desperately insisting you also needed orthopedic slippers because you once searched for loafers. Just page after page of impossibly beautiful campaigns that made the entire magazine smell faintly of expensive perfume and impossible lifestyles.
In 2026, Vogue seems rudderless, with an Anna Wintour stand-in that thinks beige is a color and that flat shoes and sandals should be worn to Gala’s.
Look at Town & Country, who once chronicled a social world that existed long before hashtags. Old money, Historic estates, Philanthropy before it became a rush to personal branding. Families whose names appeared on museum wings rather than venture-capital pitch decks. Society pages weren't determined by follower counts; they were determined by actual society.
Now, the trust funders all have an iPhone camera, a selfie stick and socialist ideas that would have bankrupted their families generations before they bought their EV. With that went the social graces covered in T&C. The styles, décor, gilt and suave. Editors today seem to be afraid to show wealth for fear they will be doxxed in a sort of ‘Mamdani’ way.
For men’s style and fashion, GQ was never trying to be your life coach. It simply assumed men might aspire to dress well, read serious journalism, buy decent shoes, appreciate architecture, discover great novels, and understand why a proper tuxedo matters. Over time, the urban male took over and somewhere along the way, gold chains, dental grills and open shirts took over and GQ became an empty hanger.
Esquire, somehow managed to combine literature, politics, humor, style, fiction, and investigative reporting without apologizing for expecting readers to possess an attention span. The magazine had confidence. Editors edited, while writers wrote. Esquire photographers developed their own style that was rich, deep and often times seen thru a sepia filter. No one held a meeting asking whether the article could be reduced to eight slides with animated captions.
Esquire courted retailers with their “100 Best” awards, a shout out that would reverberate across America. Like Vogue, Esquire could make or break you.
They were seated in the front row of men’s AND woman’s runways shows and had the best table at Michael’s on 55th.
And oh, those runway shows meant everything for a designer. The front row was populated by editors whose opinions could sway a market, buyers placing million-dollar orders, photographers whose work defined an era, and critics who actually knew the difference between bias-cut satin and silk faille.
Today, too many prime seats are reserved for whoever generated the most engagement last week by pointing at handbags while upbeat music plays in the background. It seems that influence has replaced influence. Visibility has replaced authority and virality has replaced expertise.
The irony is almost Shakespearean.
The people who once spent decades learning fashion are increasingly competing for access with people who learned how to game an algorithm. Some magazines still produce exceptional work. Credit where deserved is certainly due. There are brilliant editors and fearless writers keeping the lights on with a fraction of the resources they once had, but the economics have become almost comical.
Oddly enough, the vice presidents of digital transformation multiplied like rabbits.
Every struggling publication somehow has twelve people analyzing audience metrics but can't afford another investigative reporter or feature shoot.
Today's editorial meetings probably begin with analytics while yesterday’s began with ideas. The internet wasn't the problem though. Panic was. Magazine executives spent twenty years trying to become technology companies instead of remembering they were in the business of producing something people couldn't stop reading. Instead of cultivating loyal subscribers, they chased anonymous clicks. Instead of commissioning unforgettable stories, they commissioned endless "content."
Even that word tells the story… content? As though Joan Didion, Dominick Dunne, Christopher Hitchens, or Gay Talese were merely producing units for a publishing pipeline. The tragedy isn't that Vanity Fair has fewer pages, it’s that the entire culture has become thinner. We've confused speed with intelligence and reach with authority while thinking exposure is an accomplishment.
The old magazines were wildly imperfect. Elitist, clearly excessive and gloriously self-important. But they believed that excellence was expensive and made it all work. They believed readers deserved the finest writers, the finest photographers, the finest editors, and enough pages to let those people do their jobs.
Not anymore.
Today the zoom meetings reek with “faster, cheaper, optimized, repurposed, monetized, cross promotional, algorithm friendly gobbledee-gook. The media brands of today often feel like exhausted interns feeding an endless digital slot machine. Titles have disappeared, pages have been lost and confidence is in the back row.
To be fair, there are a few that have stayed the course, Covid-corrected and still stand for something. The Robb Report, Private-Air Magazine, Bazaar, W.M Brown, Nobleman and The Rake are exceptional and worthy of their space. All of these put quality in print first, digital footprint second and have held the banner for the others that have sunk to the abyss.
There is nothing wrong with pulling up a digital issue and scrolling thru it while in bed, but can you place it ever so selectively on your coffee table and enjoy the cover work for the next 30 days? I don’t think so.