Vanity Fair

In the diary’s publishing world, Vanity Fair is both a rival to Interview and a valuable stage for publicity. Its arrival prompts Interview to guard its artists and visual identity; later, its covers and reporting appear as measures of professional opportunity and public attention. The references do not provide a full account of Vanity Fair’s organization or editorial history, but they show how its growing presence was experienced through competition, recruitment, and the desire to be seen in its pages.

Rivalry with Interview

Interview’s circulation had been increasing, and its blend of sophistication and self-mocking silliness helped make it attractive to celebrities. That success did not remove the pressure of competition. As Vanity Fair was about to appear, Interview’s staff feared it was taking their artists. The immediate response was to get a distinct look into circulation first: after a Twiggy cover proved unsatisfactory, Interview planned to use a Robert Risko caricature instead. The episode makes rivalry concrete. It was not only a contest for readers or names on a cover, but also a struggle over artists and recognizable visual style.

The contrast sharpened later, when Fred reported that Nell Campbell would appear on Vanity Fair’s cover. Interview’s own covers, by comparison, were described with weary dissatisfaction, including those featuring Cybill Shepherd and Diane Keaton. Yet Interview had a countervailing strength: people praised the honesty of its Cybill Shepherd interview. The comparison therefore does not reduce to one magazine simply succeeding and the other failing. Vanity Fair’s cover choice registered as a competitive advantage, while Interview could still claim value in the candor of its interviews.

Writers, photographers, and divided loyalties

A dispute over Annie Leibovitz’s work reveals that Vanity Fair’s competition reached beyond covers. At a dinner, Leibovitz said Jann Wenner was angry because she had accepted a one-year contract with Vanity Fair and he believed she could not work for both it and Rolling Stone. The account presents the contract as a point of friction between publications and makes the photographer’s professional allegiance a contested matter. Vanity Fair appears here not merely as another outlet, but as an employer whose offer could unsettle existing relationships in the magazine world.

The diary also records Steve Aronson reporting on a gallery for Vanity Fair. At the same time, he had recently completed an article on Stuart Pivar for Architectural Digest. Pivar had for weeks presented himself as uninterested in publicity and intent on privacy; while speaking with Aronson, however, he seemed to want the attention intensely. The juxtaposition links magazine journalism to the management of public image: a profile could be something a subject disavowed in principle while plainly desiring in practice. The entry does not specify Vanity Fair’s editorial aims, but it places the magazine within a network of reporting through which galleries and individuals became visible.

A platform for publicity

Vanity Fair’s value as a platform also appears in the social effort surrounding Mark Gero’s paintings. At a party at Liza Minnelli’s apartment, Minnelli had people from Vogue, Details, and Vanity Fair present while promoting the work. The gathering joined art and publicity directly: the paintings were not discussed in isolation from the publications and people who might circulate their reputation. Vanity Fair’s presence among those invited indicates that it mattered as part of the press audience Minnelli sought to reach.

These scenes give the magazine a double position in the diary. It is a competitor that can attract artists, photographers, and cover subjects away from Interview, but it is also a publication whose notice is sought by people promoting work or cultivating attention. That dual role helps explain why its references carry more weight than a passing mention of a rival title: they register the practical stakes of media visibility for both publications and the people around them.

What the diary reveals

The evidence offers glimpses rather than a complete institutional portrait. Vanity Fair is seen through specific pressures: the perceived loss of Interview’s artists, the choice of a competing cover subject, a photographer’s contract, a journalist’s gallery assignment, and a host’s effort to assemble influential magazine representatives. Each occasion shows a different route by which a magazine could shape careers and public perception, whether by commissioning work, featuring a person, or being invited into a promotional circle.

Together, the episodes suggest that competition was conducted through people and images as much as through the magazines themselves. A cover could signal which publication had secured a sought-after figure; a contract could make professional loyalties contentious; and an invitation to a party could turn editorial contacts into part of an artist’s publicity strategy. Within this record, Vanity Fair’s significance lies in that visible circulation of attention—and in the way its presence pushed Interview and its associates to respond.