A business trip to the garden

Graidon Carter leaves the post of editor -in -chief of Vanity Fair. For 25 years, he himself became a celebrity

One of the most influential American journalists Graidon Carter announced that Vanity Fair was leaving, the editor -in -chief of which he worked for 25 years. Over a quarter of a century, Carter himself turned into a person-prisoner (in particular, he became the hero of the book “How to lose friends and make everyone hate you”), and his magazine remained a symbol of an American smart gloss, even when difficult times came for glossy magazines. "Medusa" talks about the crankcase, its publication and the future of both.

Canadian Graidon Carter headed Vanity Fair in 1992, replacing Tina Brown in this post, which led the publication almost from the moment of its restart in 1983. By his arrival, a glossy magazine, who saw in his first iteration the still golden era of Hollywood, turned into a witty and simply smart from the “boring and arrogant”. So, a year before the Carter arrived, the legendary Vanity Fair cover with the completely naked Demi Moore was released in the seventh month of pregnancy, shot by Annie Leibovits . Exactly 26 years later, the magazine reached the paraphrase of this frame, a beautifully looping story on the eve of the card of the crankcase: for the cover of the August number, also naked and also pregnant Serena Williams was removed. The author of the picture was again Leibovits, who in the years when the VF headed Carter (and largely thanks to him) turned into the most well -known journal photographer of the planet.

The Karter Vanity Fair was more than the magazine about celebrities and the elite (even the two most popular issues during his leadership were dedicated to the marriage of John Kennedy Jr. with Caroline Casotte and the divorce of Jennifer Eniston with Brad Pitt). This is still the main publication about “the life and appearance of people who form our culture”, including the British royal family, and Watergate Mark Felt, and Miley Cyrus. In 1994, Carter came up with a annual Oscar party (which became the most popular social event of those that take place after the ceremony), and since 1995-to release a Hollywood number with a sign for the publication of the multi-figure shooting of the main movie stations of the year for the cover (most often the same Leibovitsa was responsible for it). At the same time, Vanity Fair entered numerous serious reports - including, for example, investigations about the war in Iraq.

Vanity Fair under the leadership of Carter was not on advanced social changes, but always reacted to them. Examples of this - and the cover with Kaitlin Jenner after the operation to correct the biological sex, and the conversation with the Levinsky monika about the culture of shame, and the same cover with the pregnant Williams. Politics, business, cinema, literature-according to Vanity Fair, all this pop culture. The scope of Carter's interests is also well illustrated by his track record. It includes a preface to the 400-page monograph by the designer of Tom Ford, the history of the Bush administration with the speaking heading “What we lost” and the anthology of the satirical magazine Spy, invented by Carter in the early 80s.

Over Graidon Carter, they were torn for old -fashionedness (according to the NEW Republic estimates , in every third release of Vanity Fair from 2003 to 2011 there was at least one article on Kennedy's family) and directly criticized Vaytvying in the traditions of the White American elite (after which the Hollywood issue of the magazine was released from the record for the referral for the calculation of dark -skinned stars with a cover). During the leadership, Carter managed to quarrel and make peace with Gwyneth Paltrow, producing the documentary Martin Scorsese for HBO, open a bar and a restaurant, become a character of a book (and film) “How to lose friends and make you hate you”, more than once walk along Donald Trump and get a gradon Carter Carder Briner , looks like a shit, and he has food and he has food shit! ” The current US President Vanity Fair is generally connected by a long relationship: Carter ridiculed Trump, while still working in SPY, and on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, he was extremely harshly urgently calling for not supporting a resident billionaire.

It is possible that it was thanks to the charisma of Carter that the magazine managed to not only survive, but also prosper during the crisis of print media. “Graidon is part of the pantheon of legendary editors. A classic resident of New York: brilliant, funny, working tirelessly, with an inexhaustible interest in politics, culture and art, ” said Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York.

What will happen next to the magazine and what Graidon Carter will do is not yet clear. He himself, in his characteristic ironic manner, said in an interview with The New York Times that he would not announce anything, because "it is better to screw up quietly than to make a loud statement and fall with a bang." It is only known that Carter will oversee the traditional Hollywood release of Vanity Fair on the eve of the next Oscar, and then will move away from business for six months. Carter himself prefers to call this an old -fashioned British term “a business trip to the garden” .

Olga Strachovskaya