Jonathan Van Meter and the Age of Celebrity | Celeb Fashion Blog

Jonathan Van Meter and the Age of Celebrity
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Jonathan Van Meter and the Age of Celebrity

Posted: 21 Aug 2014 11:04 AM PDT

NEW YORK, United States — As the age of celebrity continues to reshape fashion, I thought it would be interesting to sit down with Jonathan Van Meter, who writes the celebrity profiles for American Vogue.

Jonathan began his career back in the 1980s, working at 7 Days, a cult weekly founded by Adam Moss, currently the editor of New York magazine. At the time, a number of incredible magazines were being born and producing a wave of talented editors: Graydon Carter at Spy, Adam Moss at 7 Days, Annie Flanders at Details, Nick Logan at The Face, Terry Jones at i-D, Anna Piaggi at Vanity and Stefano Tonchi at Westuff. Jonathan, who was just a kid in his early 20s, answered a classified ad that said, "Wanted: Associate Style Editor for new Manhattan weekly," along with nothing more than a phone number.

"I was hired immediately and they let me write from the get-go, because like at any start-up, they needed everyone to do everything," he recalls. "It was almost like working on a college newspaper. We worked constantly. We were there on nights and weekends. But it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. The very first real profile I did was with Joan Rivers. I will never forget she was wearing a Calvin Klein pea green dress and holding her little dog Spike under her arm and we ran around the city together all day and into the night."

Jonathan went on to profile all of the New York City doyennes of the late 1980s, like Liz Smith, Helen Gurley Brown and Carrie Donovan. They ruled the headlines of the society pages, but around Jonathan they would lose their inhibitions and forget that he was a journalist, which enabled the writer to extract something special for his stories. "I learned how to be a fly on the wall. It's an incredible thing to be the guy with a tape recorder pretending to be at the party. I learned to roll with it, to sort of put my personality aside, to listen."

In a way, it's what he still does today, but Jonathan credits much of his skill as one of the world's top profile writers to the mentorship of Adam Moss. "Adam Moss truly is a master. One of the things that bores me about so many profiles that I read in magazines today is that they aren't about anything," he says. "Adam's stories were always about at least three things. He really understands great storytelling and subtext."

Though 7 Days was a cult hit in publishing circles, it folded two years after launch. But Jonathan was offered writing gigs at almost every magazine that mattered. After doing freelance writing for everyone, from Vanity Fair to The New York Times Magazine, he wound up signing a contract with American Vogue, because, as he puts it, "Anna Wintour won the charm offensive through phone calls and flowers."

http://vimeo.com/104024766

He worked at Vogue as a contributor for a year, then took up a staff position at the magazine when James Truman left for Details. "But I always felt like I wasn't meant to work there somehow," Jonathan reflects. "I'm not a fashion person and what I didn't understand, then, was that the priorities of [a fashion magazine] are so different. Suddenly, everything was flipped. A piece would get killed because the pictures weren't good, whereas at somewhere like New York magazine or 7 Days, they would just say, 'We will find another picture!' The written piece was more important. Now, I totally get it. But, then, I didn't understand the way people talked."

"I remember one time being in a meeting," he recalls, "and it was always important to put a number on the cover, something like '600 Day Looks for Fall.' Someone said, 'We counted all of the looks and there aren't 600 looks!' and Anna said, 'Did you count every pair of shoes?'

'Yes, we did,' came the reply.

'Well did you count every bracelet?' she countered.

'Is a bracelet a look?'

And, in a way that only she could, Anna says: 'Yes, a bracelet is a look.'"

"You know, I remember Donna Karan saying 'The hat is the new shoulder pad' and really meaning it with all of her heart," recalls Jonathan. "I thought about it and realised, 'Yeah, in fact, the hat is the new shoulder pad. I totally know what she's saying!'"

After six months at American Vogue, Jonathan's career took a surprising turn when he received a call from Time Inc. They told him that music producer Quincy Jones wanted to launch a sort of black Rolling Stone celebrating the world of hip-hop and R&B. Adam Moss had recommended Jonathan, saying: "Jonathan Van Meter has the taste of an 18-year-old black girl." So, as he puts it, Jonathan became "the gay white editor of a hip-hop magazine" that he named Vibe.

"I got to hire a team and we got to conjur a magazine, to come up with the name. All of that architecture remains at Vibe to this day — the names of the sections, the logo, everything was me. I was the founding editor and created the template," he recalls. "The first months were amazing, but as soon as it became public, it was nightmare. I mean, hip-hop was all about gangster rap at the time and that world was very homophobic and very misogynistic and it was clear that it was not going to work."

Using the visual sensibility he picked up working at Vogue, he took the hip-hop world and aimed to elevate it. Rolling Stone used Annie Leibovitz from the beginning, when their offices were still in counterculture San Francisco, and she went on to create some of the most iconic celebrity images of our time. But hip-hop wasn't represented aesthetically at that kind of level. For Jonathan, this was the key opportunity. "You never saw someone like Queen Latifah elevated to a gorgeous place in the way Vogue does. For me, this new magazine had to have that level of photography. That's what was missing. We just wanted to change the context, do something beautiful. I felt like we really accomplished that. One of Mario Testino's first big jobs was shooting for Vibe."

Jonathan worked on twelve issues of Vibe. But after a scandal involving Madonna and Dennis Rodman, he stepped down, took some time off and contemplated his next move. "Then, one night I went to a big opening in Soho. I got off the elevator and I see Anna Wintour all the way across the room and she waved and said let's have breakfast and then I went back to Vogue and that's what I have been doing ever since. I've been a contributing editor for the last 17 years. It was funny, after all of the turmoil at Vibe, Anna was like my fairy godmother."

In recent years, the role of celebrity has transformed the fashion business and Jonathan has been close to the centre of this shift. In the two years that I myself worked at American Vogue (1989-1991), the only celebrities we ever put on the cover were Madonna and Ivana Trump, when she was having the divorce scandal of the century. Andre Leon Talley famously re-did her whole look, so, in a way, it became a fashion story. But it was very unusual; two out of twenty-four issues.

"I felt, like, when I was doing Vibe, it all started to shift," says Jonathan. "Time Inc launched InStyle and the female focused tabloids like US Weekly started blooming," recalls Jonathan. "The culture of female celebrity became this great obsession. I was like, 'Why is this happening?' [Sittings editor] Tonne Goodman and I laugh about this all of the time. Neither one of us intended to work on all of the covers. I don't remember thinking that much about it until other people pointed it out to me and said, 'Wow, Vogue has really changed.' I mean, it's no secret that Grace Coddington was not happy about that, so I would hear her grumble about it."

Apart from spotting Catherine Deneuve at Yves Saint Laurent, my own first recollection of seeing a celebrity filled fashion show was on the set of Robert Altman's fashion industry take-down movie Pret-a-Porter. All of the sudden there was a show within the show and I remember thinking, 'Thank goodness this is just for a movie.' But slowly celebrity started to seep into every aspect of the industry and when Anna Wintour recognised something was happening, she put Jonathan on the case.

"Anna, still, to this day, thinks of me as the guy that will write the big piece about the big thing of the moment. When models became supermodels, I did the big story where Linda Evangelista said, 'We don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day' and that quote became the 'Let them eat cake' of the 20th century. Once models shifted off the covers, I was riding the wave of the cover becoming about celebrity. And it's not just actresses and pop stars; it's been Oprah, it's been Hillary Clinton. So in a sense, it's even more exciting because you're never quite sure who's going to be on the cover."

Today, being on the cover of American Vogue is a bit like winning an Oscar; it's a trophy that many celebrities aim to achieve. "No matter how famous [they are], it resonates in such a big way for every single one of them," says Jonathan. "It's like being on the cover of Rolling Stone; it was a thing. You could write a song about it, you could write a story about it. It itself became part of the culture. Saying 'the cover of Rolling Stone' became a cultural norm."

"I actually started to feel really good about [putting celebrities on the cover]," he continues. "It's opening up this one page that happens 12 times a year to a whole new group of contenders. Someone like Adele for instance, who is a working class English girl, a single mom and hardly model-size. The cover of Vogue is a funny thing. Its meaning has changed."

"When I think about the period when I did dueling covers between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, it became clear that these women were using Vogue when they wanted to say something. Like Charlize Theron decided she wanted to talk about Sean Penn and get that out there and have it done right, so I got to be the guy that spent three days hanging out with this really cool person. That's the part of my job I like the most. But they want to be elevated. They have something that they want to have come out in an elegant environment — and then it can go ahead and get devoured by every blog, by every news outlet. But at least the starting place will have been chic, will have been Vogue."

And Jonathan will have been there, because, after all, he knows how to be the man at the party with a tape recorder — that a bracelet is a look.

Celeb Sightings: Drew Barrymore Celebrates Fashion Launch In ...

Posted: 19 Mar 2015 11:10 AM PDT

--Drew Barrymore helped pals Robin Antin and Kylie Gulliver celebrate their new fashion line Elliott Label at a launch party at Kyle by Alene Too in Beverly Hills, Calif.

--Lauren Conrad sipped sprinkle-rimmed champagne and snapped photos on her phone with friends at the launch party of artist Gray Malin's collaboration with Sperry in L.A.

--Lady Gaga was decked out in Arnette snow goggles and Volcom gear on the slopes at Operation Smile's 2015 Celebrity Ski & Smile Challenge in Park City, Utah.

--Celebrity Hair Stylist Nicole Hartmann gave Renee Zellweger a mini makeover, cutting bangs for her trip to Paris Fashion Week, at Harper Salon on Melrose in L.A.

--Real Housewives of Atlanta stars Cynthia Bailey and Claudia Jordan dined at Red Stixs in NYC.

--Alessandra Ambrosio grabbed Pinkberry frozen yogurt while wearing Karen Kane's Embellished Peasant Top in Brentwood, Calif.

--Elijah Wood asked for new GEVALIA Iced Coffee with Almond Milk to cool down from the Austin sun while at SXSW.

--Peyton List got a braid from at-home beauty service Stylisted in L.A.

--Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis kissed in the Airbnb photo booth during the Sound Ventures party sponsored by DeLeon Tequila at SXSW in Austin, TX.

--David Arquette enjoyed a late night with friends at Crazy Horse III in Las Vegas.

--Brad Paisley jumped onstage for a special performance, taking over for DJ MICK, while guests sipped on Ketel One at Jimmy Kimmel's party with Entertainment Weekly at the Samsung Studio at SXSW in Austin, TX.

--Perrey Reeves wore an Endless Summer dress to The Gunman premiere in L.A.

--Alli Simpson rocked Ditto jeans to the "On the Road to the Radio Disney Music Awards" kickoff in L.A.

--Tennis stars Mike Bryan and Bob Bryan played in their band with Counting Crows drummer Jim Bogios and their friend Kaley Cuoco, who played the tambourine, at the Indian Wells tennis tournament in Southern California.

Lindsay Lohan's Celebrity Fashion App Heads to Court ... - Just Jared

Posted: 28 Feb 2015 06:00 PM PST

Lindsay Lohan's Celebrity Fashion App Heads to Court

Lindsay Lohan keeps it fierce in a pair of leather pants while grabbing a bite to eat at Hakkasan Mayfair on Friday (February 27) in London, England.

It was recently announced the 28-year-old actress will not be able to market an app that allows people to buy clothes and accessories that they see celebrities wear.

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Lindsay Lohan

The judge has issued a temporary restraining order against Lindsay and her company Vigme, which is being accused of stealing the idea from former partner Fima Potik.

"I have full faith in the justice system," Lindsay's brother Michael shared after the court hearing.

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Why Commenting On Celebrity Fashion Is F*cked Up — Everyday ...

Posted: 19 Mar 2015 11:00 AM PDT

Actress Freida Pinto on a red carpet, surrounded by paparazzi

Source: Pix Shark

An actress arrives at the Academy Awards – or any awards show or movie premiere – and steps onto the red carpet.

A microphone is held up to her face. And the first – and quite possibly only – question she is asked is "Who are you wearing?"

Immediately, she is transformed into a walking, talking advertisement for a fashion designer, the red carpet reduced from a place of honor for an accomplished woman in contention for a prestigious award to a Fashion Week runway.

The Academy Awards are supposed to be an opportunity for actors and actresses to be honored for their work in film.

It is, as they say, an honor just to be nominated. An honor that will, at least for the women, likely be completely overshadowed before, during, and after the event by discussions of what they wear and how they look.

Their bodies, clothes, manicures, and purses will be scrutinized and criticized on television, print media, and the Internet.

So-called fashion experts will weigh in on the style choices. They will compile best- and worst-dressed lists. And hoards of women will take to the Internet in droves to say mean things about actresses' bodies and what they put on them in the comment sections.

This will serve to reinforce, in the strongest possible way, the notion that the way that women look is far more important than what we achieve.

And this fact will be pointed out by any number of people, all of whom will be met by a rather stunning amount of denial and justification.

"It's not about shaming the actresses," they tell us. "It's about fashion" – as if we shouldn't look at the ways in which fashion can be used to oppress women in general, as well as intersectionally along lines of race, class, size, gender, and dis/ability.

For example, women of color – when they are nominated at all – face not just the gauntlet of being compared to a standard of beauty that is only fully achievable through photo manipulation, but to a heaping helping of respectability politics as well.

Fat women, on the other hand, are reminded that fat is a master status that will forever overshadow anything that they could achieve, and that self-deprecation is expected – as is wearing clothing chosen for no other reason that it creates the illusion than they look different than they do.

And can you recall the last time an actress rolled the red carpet in a wheelchair, or walked using a mobility device?

It's not just actors and actresses parading down those runways, but our narrow standards of beauty – white, thin, cis-gendered, currently able-bodied – too.

And those who don't meet the standard are either excluded or are told – explicitly or implicitly – that they deserve stern criticism for their "shortcomings."

Oppression from Every Intersectional Direction

Take singer and Disney star Zendaya Coleman for instance, who walked the red carpet in locs that Fashion Police and E! News host Guiliana Rancic said looked like "they smell like patchouli oil and weed."

Zendaya responded on Twitter:

"[T]o say that an 18 year-old young woman with locs must smell like patchouli or 'weed' is not only a large stereotype, but outrageously offensive. […] There is already harsh criticism of African American hair in Hollywood without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge others based on the curl of their hair. My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar Red Carpet was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good enough."

Rancic later took responsibility and apologized, while E! tried to justify the mess saying that a "black senior producer" hadn't cut the joke.

And racism is just the start!

In an interview discussing why she's starting her own fashion line, Melissa McCarthy said, "When I go shopping, most of the time, I'm disappointed.

Two Oscars ago, I couldn't find anybody to do a dress for me. I asked five or six designers – very high-level ones who make lots of dresses for people – and they all said no."

These are designers who fight tooth and nail to get their dresses on actresses walking the red carpet at the Oscars.

Yet they refused to dress a plus-sized woman, despite the fact that the majority of women in the country wear plus sizes (or, as I like to call them, sizes) and that the woman asking them to dress her was an Academy Award nominee who was walking the same red carpet, getting the same attention, and being considered for the same honor as the thinner counterparts the designers were all but begging to wear their clothes.

When Gabourey Sidibe had the audacity to be Black, fat, wear a beautiful body hugging ivory gown, and walk the red carpet at the Golden Globes all at the same time, she got criticized for each of those things individually and in every possible combination – in everything from immature fat jokes to concern trolling about her health.

She responded with perhaps one of my favorite tweets of all the time:

And of course, this doesn't take into account the lack of diversity in the Academy itself (in 2012, the Los Angeles Times found that of the almost 6,000 members of the Academy, 94% are white, 77% are male, and 86% are age 50 or older) and in the nominees (this year's acting nominees didn't include a single person of color, and the directorial nominees were all male).

No, They Weren't Asking for It

Another very common justification for the poor treatment of actresses at awards shows is that the actresses deserve it because they are celebrities – and that they therefore "put themselves out there to be judged."

This always seems to be tossed around with no commentary as to how that line of "logic" affects the millions of little girls who want to emulate celebrities, or the fact that it means we're actually looking for reasons to justify objectifying women and reducing them to their appearance, instead of fighting it.

Not to mention that the people using this justification seem to completely forget that what these women are actually putting themselves out there to do is act – to tell stories and portray characters and use their talent.

And now they're "putting themselves out there" because they're so good at what they do that they've been nominated for an award.

Being a talented woman should not come with an inevitable side of fashion bashing and body snarking.

In fact, before 1961, there was no red carpet, no swarm of reporters – and nominated actresses showed up anyway to see if they had—you know—won the damn award.

I think that when we say, correctly, that a woman being in public is not an invitation to objectify her, that we should apply that to all women – including those nominated for awards because of their accomplishments at work.

And it's not just the dresses that we use to reduce women to objects. Since 2012, E! Network has employed the "Mani Cam," a tiny box with a red carpet inside that women put their hands in, thereby reducing them to merely the paint on a single body part.

Further, the "Clutch Cam" took the focus off talented women completely and put it where it obviously belongs – on their purses. Maybe next year we can having the "Earring Cam" – or, hey!, even just take it all the way with the "Tits and Ass Cam."

How Actresses Are Pushing Back (And Why We Need to Support Them)

Things are changing, and a lot it is coming from the actresses themselves.

The "Mani Cam" got retired this year after it was publicly snubbed by actresses including Jennifer Aniston, Julianne Moore, and Reese Witherspoon, and in an epic moment when Elisabeth Moss waited for the camera to zoom in on her hand before extending her middle finger, causing reporter Julianna Rancic to desperately reach for her arm while Ms. Moss just smiled broadly.

Amy Poehler and Reese Witherspoon joined forces with The Representation Project to promote their online campaign #AskHerMore, calling on reporters to ask the women being honored more meaningful questions than the name on their dress tag.

Jennifer Lawrence responded to being asked "Tell us about the pieces you are wearing" by saying "What do you mean? Like, this is the top, and this is the bottom."

And when a camera started at her feet and panned up, Cate Blanchett stooped down to interrupt the shot, pointed in the camera and said ,"Do you do that to the guys?" An excellent question all the way around.

By refusing to bow to the pressure of being complacent eye candy, these women are putting their careers on the line. And we should, at the very least, have their backs.

We set up a system in which we put celebrity women up on a pedestal, then claim that the fact that they're up there makes it okay for us to judge them publicly and harshly. Then we tear them down off the pedestal in a bid to feel a little bit better about ourselves.

And why?

Because we live in a world where the diet and beauty industries make billions of dollars by making us feel like we'll never be good enough because we'll never measure up to – wait for it – celebrities.

And we haven't even discussed the amazing singers, actors, dancers, and other entertainers we'll never see because those in power choose entertainers for traits like being thin, white, young, cisgender, and currently able-bodied first, and talented second.

Meeting a stereotype of beauty becomes the ticket to entry for anyone to get to display their talent. And sooner or later, this machine of oppression hurts us all.

The good news is that it runs on our time, money, and energy – which means we can take the fuel away and bring the machine to a screeching halt.

Women should be able to be talented – including in ways that put them in the public eye – without being treated like pieces of well-dressed, well-manicured , clutch-carrying meat.

We should work to change the ways in which the fashion world oppresses women and contributes to racism, sizeism, ableism, ageism, and gender stereotypes.

Women should be able to dress up for special occasions without the occasion becoming about how they are dressed. We should be able to find a way to acknowledge the artistry of fashion designers without erasing the achievements of the women wearing their clothing.

And we can all be much more interested in asking women "Who are you?" than "Who are you wearing?"

***

To learn more about this topic, check out:

Ragen Chastain is a trained researcher, three-time National Champion dancer, and marathoner who writes and speaks full-time about self-esteem, body image, and health. Ragen is the author of the blog DancesWithFat and the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, and her writing has been published in forums including the Huffington Post, Calgary Herald, Jezebel.com, and The Frisky.com. She is the editor of the multi-volume anthology The Politics of Size – Perspectives from the Fat Acceptance Movement, due out for Praeger in 2015. You can check her out on Twitter .

Stacy London Says Coachella Fashion Needs to Die: See Her ...

Posted: 27 Mar 2015 09:30 AM PDT

Stacy London at the Big Apple Circus Benefit on December 6, 2014. Celeb stylist Stacy London is not a fan of Coachella festival fashion. Credit: Monica Schipper/Getty Images

Goodbye forever, festival fashion!

If celebrity stylist Stacy London had her way, we wouldn't see another romper, floral headband, or knee-high gladiator sandal ever again. The longtime style fixer and star of Love, Lust or Run, says she's over the copycat looks as seen at the annual Coachella music and art event.

PHOTOS: Celeb street style -- copy the looks

"I'm so sick of festival gear," London, 45, told Cosmopolitan.com. "Coachella needs to die. Honestly, we can listen to the music at home."

Well, it's not the all-star music lineups she finds most annoying, it's all the predictable trends worn at once.

"You don't have to follow trends because they're trends," the What Not to Wear alum explained. "Fashion is an industry that is built on in security, not autonomy." Adding, "You have to remember that you are an individual with the possibility of making choices within an industry that's always going to tell you you're failing. That's how they sell things. "

Stacy London says she isn't a fan of Coachella Festival fashion.
Credit: Dave Mangels/Getty Images for Coachella

Though high temps are expected for the event held in Indio, Calif., London says that's no excuse to have a barely there uniform.

PHOTOS: Stars' outrageously expensive street style

"Festival dressing has become all about skin," London said. "It's become about how sexy you can be in your denim shorts and your halter top."

Still, the TV personality is far from a prude, saying, "It's not that celebrating one's sexuality doesn't have a place. But to turn a festival into that as a style? I don't know if that's the best way to enjoy a festival."

PHOTOS: Editors' style pics for spring 2015

London wants women to own their individual style. "Your style is a reflection of who you are as a person, and your style should be a celebration of who you are as a person, because you are enough," she said. "And whatever you decide to clothe yourself in is really just the icing on the very yummy cake."

12 Fashion Hacks You've Never Heard Before (But Need To ...

Posted: 30 Mar 2015 10:24 PM PDT

Here at Who What Wear, we consider ourselves hack experts of sorts—whether it's how to fix scuffed boots or the sercret to dealing with those ultra-annoying knots that form in your necklaces, we're always happy to share the easy fixes. After all, our goal is to empower you to be the best version of yourself—which, we know as well as anyone, can be a challenge as life gets busy.

So, as a follow-up to our popular post from last year detailing a ton of hacks that will help you clean, upgrade, and organize your wardrobe, we did some digging to come up with even more under-the-radar hacks you've probably never heard before. From how to use vodka in your closet (yes, really) to the genius way to wash silk at home, we got you.

Keep scrolling to learn 12 amazing fashion hacks you haven't heard before (but need to)!

Celeb Fashion

Wednesday, 1 April 2015