Salon.com > Vogue

Michelle kept Obama from going up in flames

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:05:00 +0000

Michelle Obama dazzles on the cover of the upcoming issue of Vogue, which boasts a series of photographs of the first couple, taken by -- who else? -- Annie Leibovitz, and a cover story by Jonathan van Meter. Van Meter's profile focuses mainly on the softer side of the Obamas: their relationship, their family values and how the two unwind. Buried within the warm and cuddly profile, however, are a few things that you may not have known about our nation's leader:

President Obama loves “Where Is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas:

"The photographer has her iPod playing the Black Eyed Peas song 'Where Is the Love?' It is a mid-tempo hip-hop lament about the problematic state of the world. As the First Lady and an aide laugh together over some inside joke, the president starts nodding his head to the beat: 'Who picked the music? I love this song.' "

As a freshman state senator, the president lived in such a dump that he had to get a hotel room when the first lady would visit him:

Michelle Obama: Our family is more important than D.C. socializing

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:35:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama is pushing back against the notion that she and President Barack Obama don't socialize enough in Washington.

The first lady says in an interview in the April issue of Vogue magazine that she and the president were straightforward when they said — before moving from Chicago to Washington in 2009 — that their family, including two young daughters, would be their priority.

She said "the stresses and the pressures" of the White House are so real that they prefer to spend free time with their daughters, now 14 and 11.

"Our job is, first and foremost, to make sure our family is whole. You know, we have small kids; they're growing every day. But I think we were both pretty straightforward when we said, 'Our No. 1 priority is making sure that our family is whole,'" Mrs. Obama said in the interview, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press before the magazine hits newsstands on March 26.

She noted that most of the couple's friends are parents, too, and that when she and the president go on vacation, usually with longtime friends or relatives, they are surrounded by children.

Anna Wintour’s big promotion

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:10:00 +0000

She may not have gotten tapped to be President Obama's ambassador to the United Kingdom or France, diplomatic posts for which she had been rumored to be in contention.

But Anna Wintour has landed on her feet.

The editor of Vogue has just been named the "artistic director of Condé Nast," the company that publishes Vogue, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Glamour, among other publications. Wintour described her position as "almost like being a one-person consulting firm," running through ideas with editors at the publication and recruiting new talent.

Wintour has been extraordinarily effective in recent years at waving the flag for her publication, with a (now-ended) Fashion's Night Out event, appearances in multiple documentaries (most notably "The September Issue"), and a sort of good-humored series of public appearances after the release of "The Devil Wears Prada," a film about an icy, imperious fashion magazine editor. It's hard to imagine predecessors of hers at Vogue getting invited on David Letterman's talk show -- much less saying yes, then joking with him about how "you could buy lipstick" for $20 and her "ice queen ... dominatrix" reputation.

The André Leon Talley Show?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:44:00 +0000

Leno, Letterman, Kimmel -- you're all quickly heading out of style, as Vogue's editor-at-large and front-of-book columnist André Leon Talley may be headed to late-night TV.

Women's Wear Daily reports that the "September Issue" star and "Entertainment Tonight" correspondent has signed a development deal with the production company Electus for a potential program Talley says "blends Dick Cavett’s approach to eloquence and sophistication with unparalleled access into my international fashion lifestyle."

Sandy’s heroes get the Vogue treatment

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:34:00 +0000

In the new issue of Vogue, Annie Leibovitz shoots key responders to Hurricane Sandy — alongside some of the top models in the industry, dressed in designer togs. There are the models, reclining at the Lexington Avenue Armory while National Guardsmen lift crates of food; there they are pulling just a bit of focus from the neonatal nurses of Bellevue. Ms. Leibovitz even road a Coast Guard response boat in order to nail her shot of three sylphlike models rising from the sea on a military vessel.

What it takes to be in Vogue

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:58:00 +0000

“Extremely thin and very well-dressed, and therefore qualified to be in Vogue” is a memorable quote from the former editor of French Vogue, first issued in April, which has returned to the chatter this morning thanks to a front-page New York Times story on Syria’s image-making. Joan Juliet Buck was talking to NPR about how her notorious Vogue profile of Asma al-Assad – now inconveniently associated with a bit more bloodshed than is really socially acceptable these days – came to be.

The quote says a lot about how, with very little effort, the essentially politically agnostic values of fashion and consumption can be used to ugly political ends. This particular exploit cost the regime only $5,000 a month in a P.R. retainer -- less than the crystal-encrusted Louboutins that Asma coveted.