Harper's Bazaar

For the 1960s musical group, see Harpers Bizarre.
Harper's Bazaar

Cover of the June/July 2014 issue featuring Kate Winslet
Editor-in-chief
  • Glenda Bailey (United States)
  • Justine Picardie (United Kingdom)
  • Kellie Hush (Australia)
  • Louise Nichol (Arabia)
  • Ana Torrejon (Argentina)
  • Maria Prata (Brazil)
  • Milena Aleksieva (Bulgaria)
  • Su Mang (China)
  • Marilena Ierodiakonou (Cyprus)
  • Barbara Nesvadbova (Czech Republic)
  • Eva Nisioti (Greece)
  • Xaven Mak (Hong Kong)
  • Nishat Fatima (India)
  • Ria Lirungan (Indonesia)
  • Karina Utegenova (Kazakhstan)
  • Mikyung JJeon (Korea)
  • Natasha Kraal (Malaysia)
  • Brenda Diaz de la Vega (Mexico & Latin America)
  • Cécile Narinx (Netherlands)
  • Joanna Góra (Poland)
  • Andrei Iovu (Romania)
  • Daria Veledeeva (Russia)
  • Petar Janosevic (Serbia)
  • Lauren Clarke Jensen (Singapore)
  • Melania Pan (Spain)
  • Elaine Liao (Taiwan)
  • Duang Poshyananda (Thailand)
  • Eda Goklu (Turkey)
  • Nguyen Thuy Linh (Vietnam)
Categories Fashion
Frequency Monthly
Total circulation
(June 2012)		 734,504[1]
First issue 1867
Company Hearst Magazines
Country United States
Language English
Website harpersbazaar.com
ISSN 0017-7873

Harper's Bazaar is an American women's fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper's Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for "women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture."

Aimed at members of the upper-middle and upper classes, Bazaar assembles photographers, artists, designers and writers to deliver a "sophisticated" perspective into the world of fashion, beauty and popular culture on a monthly basis.

History

Since its debut in 1867 as America's first fashion magazine, the pages of Harper's Bazaar, first called Harper's Bazar, have been home to talent, such as the founding editor, author and translator Mary Louise Booth, as well as:

When Harper's Bazaar began publication, it was a weekly magazine catering to women in the middle and upper classes. It showcased fashion from Germany and Paris in a newspaper-design format. It was not until 1901 that Harper's moved to a monthly issued magazine which it maintains today. Now Harper's Bazaar is owned and operated by the Hearst Corporation in the U.S. and The National Magazine Company in the U.K. Hearst purchased the magazine in 1913.

Harper & Brothers founded the magazine. This company also gave birth to Harper's Magazine and HarperCollins Publishing.

Glenda Bailey is the editor-in-chief of U.S. edition of Harper's Bazaar.

Cover of Volume I, No. 49 of Harper's Bazar (now Harper's Bazaar), showing hairstyles (1868)

Victorian elegance (1898–1912)

As the turn-of-the-century began in America, Harper's Bazaar began featuring both illustrations and photographs for its covers and inside features of high society and increasingly of fashion.

During the late Victorian period, as the women's suffrage movement was gaining momentum (American women did not all win the right to vote until 1920 with the passing of the 19th Amendment), the introduction of more tailored dresses and jackets coincided with women's new sense of feminism. Bazaar also began profiling prominent socialites, such as the Astors and the Griscoms.

The Carmel Snow years (1933–1957)

In 1933, editor-in-chief Carmel Snow (a former editor at Vogue) brought photojournalist Martin Munkacsi to a windswept beach to shoot a swimwear spread. As the model ran toward the camera, Munkacsi took the picture that made fashion-magazine history. Until that moment, nearly all fashion was carefully staged on mannequin-like models in a studio. Snow's buoyant spirit (she rarely slept or ate, although she had a lifelong love affair with the three-martini lunch) and wicked sense of adventure brought life to the pages of Bazaar. Snow's genius came from cultivating the "best" people. Her first big find was art director Alexey Brodovitch, who innovated Bazaar‍ '​s iconic Didot logo. Brodovitch is perhaps best known for his work with Richard Avedon, who, as a young photographer, was so determined to work at Bazaar that he endured the humiliation of 14 canceled interviews before finally being hired. Snow also unleashed the force of nature known as Diana Vreeland, whom she brought on as fashion editor in 1936. The collaboration of these four visionaries resulted in some of the germane fashion shoots of the 20th century and ended only with Snow's retirement, at the age of 70, in 1957.

Alexey Brodovitch (1934–1958)

March 1943 cover featuring a teenage Lauren Bacall

In 1934, newly installed Bazaar editor Carmel Snow attended an Art Directors Club of New York exhibition curated by 36-year-old graphic designer Alexey Brodovitch and immediately offered Brodovitch a job as Bazaar 's art director. Throughout his career at the magazine, Brodovitch, a Russian émigré (by way of Paris), revolutionized magazine design. With his directive "Astonish me", he inspired some of the greatest visual artists of the 20th century (including protégés Irving Penn, Hiro, and, of course, Richard Avedon). Brodovitch's signature use of white space, his innovation of Bazaar 's iconic Didot logo, and the cinematic quality that his obsessive cropping brought to layouts (not even the work of Man Ray and Henri Cartier-Bresson was safe from his busy scissors) compelled Truman Capote to write, "What Dom Pérignon was to champagne ... so [Brodovitch] has been to ... photographic design and editorial layout." Sadly, Brodovitch's personal life was less triumphant. Plagued by alcoholism, he left Bazaar in 1958 and eventually moved to the south of France, where he died in 1971.

The Vreeland years (1936–1962)

When Carmel Snow saw Mrs. T. Reed Vreeland dancing on the roof of New York's St. Regis Hotel in a white lace Chanel dress and a bolero with roses in her hair one evening in 1936, she knew she'd found Bazaar's newest staffer. Diana, who is said to have invented the word "pizzazz", first came to the attention of readers with her "Why Don't You ... ?" column. (A typical suggestion: "Why don't you ... wear, like the Duchess of Kent, three enormous diamond stars arranged in your hair in front?") Before long, she became fashion editor, collaborating with photographers Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Richard Avedon and, later, art director Henry Wolf. Her eccentricity, perception and wit, as well as her sharp wit and sweeping pronouncements ("I adore that pink! It's the navy blue of India," "Elegance is refusal!"), were memorialized in the movie Funny Face, making her, for many, the prototypical fashion-magazine editor.

The Avedon years (1945–1965)

Richard Avedon began creating fashion portfolios for Harper's Bazaar at the age of 22. His distinctive photographs showed both chic insouciance and boundless vitality. Avedon's women leapt off curbs, roller-skated on the Place de la Concorde, and were seen in nightclubs, enjoying the freedom and fashions of the postwar era.

He was immortalized in the 1959 film Funny Face by the character Dick Avery (played by Fred Astaire), who asked, "What's wrong with bringing out a girl who has character, spirit, and intelligence?"

Nonnie Moore (1980–1984)

Nonnie Moore was hired as fashion editor in 1980, having served in the same post at Mademoiselle[3] The New York Times noticed the changes she made at Harper's Bazaar, highlighting how the magazine had been "looking a little dowdy", but that Moore had "noticeably sharpened the magazine's fashion point of view" by showing "brighter, younger and more stylish", complimenting her use of "young and exciting fashion photographers", such as Oliviero Toscani.[4]

Harper's Bazaar worldwide

The magazine is published in 31 countries.

Harper's Bazaar Australia

Constance Jablonski on the September 2012 cover of Harper's Bazaar Australia.

The debut issue was March 1998 with Nicole Kidman on the cover. Commencing in 2009, the winner of Australia's Next Top Model an annual Australian reality television series, has appeared on the magazine's cover and in an editorial feature. This initiative has launched the careers of Tahnee Atkinson, Amanda Ware, Montana Cox and Melissa Juratowitch. The current editor-in-chief is Kellie Hush, whose first edited issue is November 2012.

Editors

Harper's Bazaar India

Dia Mirza on the April 2010 cover of Harper's Bazaar India.

Harper's Bazaar India began publication with the March 2009 issue, which featured Kareena Kapoor and Swarovski crystals on the cover.[6] The launch editor was Sujata Assomull Sippy, but she left the magazine after the April 2012 issue.[7] The current editor, Nishat Fatima, was appointed in December 2012.[8]

Harper's Bazaar Mexico & Latin America

Harper's Bazaar Mexico & Latin America launched in September 1980, was the first fashion magazine to launch in the Latin American continent. The magazine is published by Editorial Televisa, a part of Grupo Televisa, S.A.B., the Mexican multimedia mass media company, which is the largest in Latin America and the first of the Spanish-speaking world. Televisa is the Latin American publishing partner of Hearst Magazines International, a unit of Hearst Corporation. Editorial Televisa publishes five other Hearst magazines in Mexico – Esquire, Men´s Health, Women´s Health, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping. The magazine is based in Mexico City, with fashion and beauty contributors around the world. It is distributed throughout Latin America including: Mexico, Panama, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador and Costa Rica. Argentina and Brazil have their own local editions.

The current editor, Brenda Diaz de la Vega, was appointed in February 2013.

Harper’s Bazaar UK

Rachel Weisz on the March 2013 cover of Harper's Bazaar UK, their largest issue to date.

In November 1970, the Hearst Corporation's Harper's Bazaar UK (founded in 1929) and Queen magazine (which dated from 1862) amalgamated to form Harpers & Queen. The magazine was widely perceived to be focused on British "high society" and the lives of socialites and the British aristocracy, though in fact its features were wide-ranging and often highly original. Since March 2006, it has repositioned itself as Harper's Bazaar, bringing it in line with its international sister titles. "Harpers Bazaar" aims to be very meritocratic in terms of whom it will feature: recent interviews have included subjects as diverse as the actor/director George Clooney, artist Richard Prince and British singer Leona Lewis. The magazine has won several awards, including Consumer Magazine of the Year. The current editor-in-chief is Justine Picardie.

Editors

Harper's Bazaar Vietnam

First launched on June 27, 2011, the Vietnamese version of Harper's Bazaar is called Phong cách Harper's Bazaar as a result of merging Harper's Bazaar and Phong cách.[9] Trương Ngọc Ánh is the first face cover.

Starting 2012, Harper's Bazaar Vietnam launched an enhanced iPad edition, an official YouTube channel[10] and an official Fanpage on Facebook.[11] Harper's Bazaar Vietnam was also a co-sponsor the first season of Project Runway Vietnam (local title: Nhà thiết kế thời trang Việt Nam).

In 2014, Harper's Bazaar Vietnam launched its website.[12]

Editors

See also

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Harper's Bazaar.