W is a monthly American
fashionFashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
magazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
published by
Condé Nast PublicationsCondé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
, who purchased original owner Fairchild Publications in 1999. It was created in 1971 by the publisher of sister magazine Woman's Wear Daily,
James BradyJames Winston Brady was an American celebrity columnist who created the Page Six gossip column in the New York Post and W magazine; he wrote the In Step With column in Parade for nearly 25 years until his death...
. The magazine is an oversize format – ten inches wide and thirteen inches tall.
Stefano TonchiStefano Tonchi is the editor of W. He was previously editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Having previously worked at Esquire and L'Uomo Vogue, Tonchi's editorial roots are in what he calls "niche" publications, he revealed in a 2007 interview in 032c magazine...
is the editor of W; Nina Lawrence is the vice president and publisher. W magazine has a reader base of nearly half a million, 469,000 of which are annual subscribers. 80 percent of the magazine's readers are female and have an average household income of $135,840.
Often the subject of controversy, W magazine has featured stories and covers which have provoked mixed responses from its intended audience. In July 2005, W produced a 60-page
Steven KleinSteven Klein is an American photographer based in New York.-History:After studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, he moved into the field of photography...
portfolio of
Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
and
Brad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
entitled "Domestic Bliss". The shoot was based upon Pitt's idea of the irony of the perfect American family; set in 1963, the photographs mirror the era when 1960s disillusionment was boiling under the facade of pristine 1950s suburbia.
Other controversial issues include
Steven MeiselSteven Meisel is an American photographer, who obtained popular acclaim with his work in US and Italian Vogue and his photographs of friend Madonna in her 1992 book Sex...
's shoot entitled "A Sexual Revolution," in which male and female models (including
Jessica StamJessica Stam is a Canadian model. She is considered to be part of the crop of models described as "doll faces" alongside Gemma Ward, Sasha Pivovarova, Vlada Roslyakova, Lily Cole, Caroline Trentini, Devon Aoki, and Heather Marks...
and
Karen ElsonKaren Elson is a British model, singer-songwriter and guitarist.As a child, Elson attended North Chadderton School in Chadderton with her twin sister, filmmaker Kate Elson. She began working as a model as a teenager....
) are depicted in gender-bending styles and provocative poses. In addition,
Tom FordThomas Carlyle "Tom" Ford is an American fashion designer and film director. He gained international fame for his turnaround of the Gucci fashion house and the creation of the Tom Ford label before directing the Oscar-nominated film A Single Man.-Early life :Tom Ford was born August 27, 1961 in...
's racy shoot with
Steven KleinSteven Klein is an American photographer based in New York.-History:After studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, he moved into the field of photography...
and the accompanying article on sexuality in fashion came as a shock to some loyal readers. During the interview, Ford is quoted as saying "I've always been about pansexuality. Whether I'm sleeping with girls or not at this point in my life, the clothes have often been androgynous, which is very much my standard of beauty."
Steven KleinSteven Klein is an American photographer based in New York.-History:After studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, he moved into the field of photography...
also was the photographer for the racy photo shoot featured in the August 2007 issue, showcasing
DavidDavid Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...
and
Victoria BeckhamVictoria Caroline Beckham is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, actress, fashion designer and businesswoman. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls and was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British pop music magazine Top of the Pops...
.
Bruce WeberBruce Weber is an American fashion photographer and occasional filmmaker. He is most widely known for his ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Pirelli, Abercrombie & Fitch, Revlon, and Gianni Versace, as well as his work for Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Elle, Life, Interview, and Rolling Stone...
produced a 60-page tribute to New Orleans in the April 2008 issue, and shot a 36-page story on the newest fashion designers in Miami for the July 2008 issue. Most of Ws most memorable covers are featured on the
W Classics page on the magazine's website.
W is also known for its coverage of American and European society. Many of these society luminaries, as well as the elite of the entertainment and fashion industries, have allowed W into their homes for the magazine's
W House Tours feature, including
Marc JacobsMarc Jacobs is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for Marc Jacobs, as well as Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line, with more than 200 retail stores in 60 countries. He has been the creative director of the French design house Louis Vuitton since 1997...
,
Sir Evelyn RothschildSir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild is a British financier, and a member of the Rothschild family.-Early life:The son of Anthony Gustav de Rothschild and Yvonne Cahen d'Anvers , he was named after his uncle Evelyn Achille de Rothschild who was killed in action in World War I...
and
Imelda MarcosImelda R. Marcos is a Filipino politician and widow of 10th Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to political power, she held various positions to the government until 1986...
.
In 2011, Steven Meisel created controversy again by promoting fake advertisements throughout the November issue of the magazine. Celebrities endorsing these fake ads included RuPaul's Drag Race Season 3/NY Socialite Carmen Carrera, and model
Linda EvangelistaLinda Evangelista is a Canadian model. She has been featured on over 600 magazine covers and has garnered work on numerous modeling assignments with companies, most recently with L'Oréal.- Early years :...
.
Demi Moore Photo Editing Controversy
The issue of drastic photo retouching became national news when in the December 2009 issue, actress
Demi MooreDemi Guynes Kutcher , known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress. After minor roles in film and a role in the soap opera General Hospital, Moore established her career in films such as St...
was presented with a remarkably slim figure and
what appeared to many critics, including Anthony Citrano of BoingBoing, to be a poorly "Photoshopped" hip. Both the magazine and Moore denied this claim, with the actress even posting on her personal Twitter account what she claimed was the
original photo from the shoot,
and further disputed that the editors of W had slimmed her figure to make her appear thinner.
Photographer Anthony Citrano later challenged this claim by Moore,
by offering $5,000 to charity, if Moore could prove that the photo she provided was the original photo from the shoot.
The issue was escalated when on November 24, 2009, the consumer watchdog website The Consumerist posted an article, claiming that they had
discovered the original photo used on the cover, asserting that Moore's head, legs, and arms were superimposed on the hips and torso of model Anja Rubik.
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