Media

This week’s magazines are a Wintour carnival

With Vogue editrix Anna Wintour shaping Glamour and Lucky, it’s time to take a look not only at those two publications but the women’s mag landscape.

The mag makeover award goes to Glamour, which has ditched the cluttered look so favored by the “everything” mags (fashion, sex, heath, shopping, etc.) in favor of a simple-yet-glamorous cover. We assume this slimmed- down look — simple gold over white with black-and-white lettering — is part of Wintour’s attempt to revive the mag, which has suffered sagging newsstand sales. Nice work, Anna. We not only like the elegance but we like that it has been done around none other than Lady Gaga, who graced the cover as one of Glamour’s “Women of the Year.” Launching with Gaga was a smart move given the tendency of Wintour, who is now Condé Nast’s artistic director, toward a high-fashion sentiment.

Lucky could do to shed some of its new-found elegance. The shopping magazine still boasts a loud and cluttered look on the cover, only to become a fashionable grandma on the inside with its overly safe stories and fashion choices. Gracing the cover is actress Kate Bosworth, who, while beautiful, strikes a note that’s a little too perfect, polished and, well, dull. Even the flowery white dress she wears looks like something grandma picked out. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for all the stiff fashions clogging every page. Lucky can’t even get its “spotted on the street” section right, featuring women who look like they just got off the runway.

Marie Claire is still the most satisfying of the “everything” magazines because it mixes high fashion with real women and a sprinkling of inspiration to change the world. Last time we picked up Marie Claire in July, the mag seemed to have lost its touch for thought-provoking stories. But Editor-in-Chief Anne Fulenwider got her groove back in the November issue, which boasts Natalie Portman on the cover. We love the feature showing women of New York’s Silicon Alley, especially the adorable Bea Arthur (yes, that’s her name) and the funky Lyndsey Butler, both 30-year-old entrepreneurs. Marie Claire does a cool photo shoot of jean fashions in the back, offset by a report on whether colleges seek to keep rape victims quiet.

Everyone loves charismatic Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles, aka JoCo, and wants her to succeed. But reading the December issue of the sex mag, we just can’t figure out how it survives. Not because it’s filled with raunchy sex tips and trashy styles, but because Cosmo is starting to look and feel like the troubled gossip rags, which are suffering from the move to digital. Yes, JoCo landed Miley Cyrus for the December issue, putting her on the cover with her trademark cropped ’do and wearing a sheer dress covered in colorful rhinestones. That was a great get. But otherwise we’re talking a montage of Ryan Gosling “at his hottest,” and another montage of celebs looking either sexy or skanky.

New York’s cover story profiles 26 women who allowed their names to be used and their pictures to be taken to talk about their experiences having abortions. The results are varied and gripping. Elsewhere, a feature asks whether the car wreck that killed rabble-rousing journalist Michael Hastings was orchestrated by, say, the FBI. There’s not much substantive reporting on that particular question until the final paragraphs. Still, it’s a good read that leaves plenty of fodder for the conspiracy theorists.

The New Yorker delves into a mess in Washington state, where elected officials and technocrats are scrambling to implement their decision to legalize marijuana. “Commercial production and sale of cannabis is going to end in tears,” says UCLA public-policy professor Mark Kleinman. Although he has advocated legalization for decades, Kleinman is rightfully concerned that legalization will create millions of new “zonkers” who abuse pot. Another thorny issue: It’s pretty much impossible to assess whether somebody is too stoned to drive by testing their breath or blood.

There has been much blubbering over Time calling Chris Christie “The Elephant in the Room” on its cover this week. But what counts is the filler inside, which provides a heaping plate of insight into the New Jersey governor’s outsize appetite for political power. And for those who are criticizing the magazine’s editors about this, there’s a feature on Mitt Romney that reveals the thwarted hopeful’s open disdain for the overweight. “‘Oh, there’s your date tonight,’ [Romney] would say to male members of his traveling crew when they spied a chunky lady on the street.”