Magazines: 100 Years in a Candy Store

Harper’s Bazaar works at being “not merely the arbiter but the vanguard of fashion” through a combination of hard and soft surprises. Hard (far-out) surprises in the March issue, out next week, include Ferrari-inspired shoes that are red, black, green and yellow, and have wheels and a red “2” painted on their sides. Also hard: a “prancesuit” made up of a melon crepe tunic and thigh-tight knee pants with blue crystal trim and blue shoes to match. The soft(expectable) surprise comes in the form of Paris spring fashions, from Dior’s white hunting jacket to St. Laurent’s daytime version of “le smoking.”

The mix of far-out and In, hard and soft, is part of the formula thathas kept Bazaar successful since its founding in 1867. This year themagazine celebrates its 100th birthday with a book to be published byRandom House and, come fall, a 90-minute TV spectacular, produced byLeland Hayward, on a century of Bazaar women. At 100, Bazaar is secondin circulation (424,800) to its fashion-world co-Bible, Vogue(442,000). But Bazaar has fashioned its own niche by aiming at stylishwomen in Des Moines and Omaha as well as New York and San Francisco. Inthe pages of Bazaar, models take on the appearance of butterflies andsnakes, Egyptian mummies and rockets about to be shot into space, underriotously colored silks, and heaps of sequins and feathers. In a14-page spread by the Japanese photographer Hiro in the currentFebruary issue, models’ bodies seem to disintegrate beneath colorfulprints. Yet in the same issue are page after black and white page ofelegantly understated suits and coats.

Niece Nancy. Started by Harper & Brothers, the book publishers, as asort of milady’s “bazar,” the magazine was bought by William RandolphHearst in 1913 for $10,000, gained a third a in 1929. “We wouldn’t take$10 million now,” says Bazaar’s publisher, William M. Fine. Last yearadvertising revenues topped $8,000,000, making Bazaar the secondbiggest moneymaker in the Hearst empire. And in the biggest ad deal inmagazine history, Celanese Corp. has bought 100 pages of ads inBazaar’s October issue for $500,000.

It was Carmel Snow, named Bazaar’s editor in 1932, who gave the magazineits present patina and slickness. In 1958, she was succeeded by herniece, Nancy White. Under her editorship the magazine has become lessliterary and more topical. While it once ran such titans as MarcelProust, Franz Kafka and Thomas Hardy, it now favors such socialcommentators and fashionable authors as Britain’s Kenneth Tynan andFrance’s Françoise Sagan. Nancy White and her editors take pride in thefact that Bazaar was the first to play up bikinis (on Suzy Parker),women’s boots, big watches, and was the first to run a man (SteveMcQueen) on the cover.

Precious Prose. Nancy White is calm, pleasant, bright, and fun to havearound the office—which, in the frantic business of fashion-magazinepublishing, is a rare fringe benefit. Bazaar’s quarters are in a drabmid-Manhattan building. Out-of-college girls write most of the preciousprose that hard-sells products in Bazaar’s “Beauty” section. Sample:”Since even a whiff of Emilio Pucci’s non-cliché Vivara Perfume isheavenly, a whole new galaxy of products in this free-as-the-windfragrance sends dedicated Vivara-ites into a happy flutter.” The girlshave a few toting privileges: if storerooms become crowded with accessories, they are allowed to help themselves to the oversupply.

Manhattan Designer Norman Norell, a friendly critic, says Harper’sBazaar is first and foremost a “photographer’s magazine.” Sometimes, asin the April 1965 issue, the photographer—in this instance, RichardAvedon—reaches way out to Alpha Centauri and science fiction forideas. The issue, which drew hundreds of letters of protest, carried 19pages of models attired in space suits, op-print dresses and Courregesboots. Not surprisingly, many fashion designers complain that theycannot recognize their own clothes in Bazaar’s artfully contrivedphotographs. All the same, Bazaar portrays a world of fantasy thatproves strangely compelling. “It’s like a kid in a candy store,” saysone compulsive reader. “You get a kick just out of looking.”

Nancy White intends to keep it that way. “Our responsibility,” she says,”is to inspire, create and point toward a trend. But actually, thephilosophy of the magazine was so well set forth in the first 1867issue that it couldn’t be said better today.” As the 1867 Bazar put it:”A bazar in oriental parlance is a vast repository for all rare andcostly things on earth—silks, velvets, cashmeres, spices, perfumes,and glittering gems; in a word, whatever can comfort the heart anddelight the eye is found heaped up there in bewildering profusion. Sucha repository we wish Harper’s Bazaar to be, combining the useful withthe beautiful.”

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