SKIRTING THE ISSUES

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In addition, subtle new forms of influence peddling have become standard operating procedure. A magazine art director owns a design agency on the side and helps create ad campaigns for his magazine's advertisers. Some fashion editors quietly moonlight as free-lance stylists for the designers whose shows they are meant to be covering as journalists, earning up to $3,000 for a day's work. What lands in Vogue or Harper's Bazaar or Elle or any of the half a dozen key magazines, may be the finest clothing, the hippest new bag or belt or jacket; it may also be the goods peddled by the editor's friend or most important advertiser or sometime employer. "Something has shifted," says Holly Brubach, style editor of the New York Times Magazine. "Instead of the friendships being kept separate from work, these friendships have been brought into the professional arena. You see it in the pages of the magazines."

Other editors are quick to dismiss this as a nonstory. "I've known Calvin Klein since 1979," says Harper's Bazaar editor in chief Elizabeth Tilberis. "I've known Karl Lagerfeld since 1968. I've known Gianni Versace since 1974. You've grown up with these people, and they'll always be friends. But it absolutely does not affect your editorial judgment or their placement of ads." And how meaningful is one little Chanel outfit presented gratuit to someone who doesn't pay for her clothes anyway? "I have a very generous clothing allowance," says Vogue's editor in chief Anna Wintour. "But if a designer gives me something, I absolutely have no problem with that. It's something I use my judgment about. It's not going to influence what you put in your pages. It's a fuss about nothing."

It is certainly true that many of the perks simply come with the territory. Among members of the press, including those at this publication, few can say they have never attended a free movie screening, received a free book or CD that they had no intention of reviewing, or purchased discounted designer clothes at invitation-only "sample sales." The difference is the way the fashion press has come to take its often valuable spoils for granted, sometimes in spite of employers' explicit rules. "When I go to the shows in Paris and Milan, the number of shopping bags coming in is unbelievable," notes Brubach, who says she accepts no free or discounted clothes, in accordance with Times policy. "You don't need to be a private detective when everyone shows up the next day in an anorak with a lining that says chanel, chanel, chanel. You can figure out that this was the present this season."

Harper's Bazaar has no explicit policy about whether its employees may receive free clothes. Conda Nast, which publishes Vogue, Mademoiselle, GQ and other glossy mags, prohibits its employees from accepting "expensive" gifts, but no dollar amount is specified. Such vague guidelines are easily gotten around by junior staff members with no clothing allowance. "You can always borrow as much as you want," explains a magazine insider. Meaning: the designer still gets to receive the editor's imprimatur, while the editor still gets to look terrific on a shoestring budget.