a blog for the beleaguered
Best celebrity sighting ever: [Former French Vogue editor in chief/rumored Anna Wintour nemesis] Carine Roitfeld walking down the street in Paris. She was wearing insanely high heels, walking like she had a hunchback, and was flanked by two Asian assistants who were both chattering in French a mile a minute. Even though her posture freaked me out, I still adore her!
- Submitted by Marie
This month’s Vogue was full of interesting things. There were lots of articles about disgustingly rich people, and one about how Angelina Jolie is prettier than Princess Diana. (No, they really said that.) But the most interesting tidbit of all was how Andre Leon Talley – he of the designer caftans and buying tennis bracelets just to play tennis – started out as a receptionist. Granted, he was a receptionist in Andy Warhol’s Factory, but he was a receptionist nonetheless. Can you imagine ALT having to do plebian tasks like fetch coffee and hang up coats? I mean, THIS GUY.
Anna Wintour recently spoke at an event called “Fashion U,” where high school and college students can learn about the fashion industry. Among other things, she spoke about being fired from a job and advised everyone to follow suit:
I worked for American Harper’s Bazaar . . . they fired me. I recommend that you all get fired, it’s a great learning experience.
Is this why she fires so many people from Vogue? Because she’s hoping to enrich their lives?
Anne Hathaway is on the cover of November’s Vogue, proving once again that you can star in The Devil Wears Prada and somehow get Anna Wintour not to hate you. In the interview, Anne says that she wants to do more than just act – her goals include finishing college, starting a band, and being Tilda Swinton’s assistant. Um, it’s cool that you like Tilda Swinton, because she is awesome, but since you’re famous already you could probably just be her friend and not have to manage her schedule.
Perhaps this is a new trend: is the vanity assistantship the new vanity internship? Way to one-up Kanye, Anne.
Birds of a feather stick together – especially when both feathers are bosses with a reputation for assistant abuse. This week is Fashion Week, and Vogue editor Anna “The Devil Wears Prada” Wintour has nothing but nice things to say about Naomi “Cell Phone Tosser” Campbell. In response to claims that Campbell was a diva (shock!) during prep for Fashion Week, Wintour said, “Naomi was on time, professional and a joy to work with.”
Yeah, you two have no incentive to protect each other. Nope.
Bee Shaffer, the daughter of Vogue editrice/notorious boss Anna Wintour, is just like a regular person! She may get to join Mom in the front rows of fashion shows, but she took a less predictable route by studying theater at Columbia University. Now that Bee is out of school, she’s applying for jobs – and, oddly, hasn’t had much luck. Yes, it turns out that the recession affects even the daughters of legendary magazine editors. According to the New York Daily News:
The 22-year-old former Teen Vogue contributing editor went on a staggering 24 interviews since graduating from Columbia in May – all of them unsuccessful.
Part of me wants to be all bitter and “well, I sent out easily 200 resumes without getting a single interview, so suck it up already,” but part of me is also like “man, if it’s hard for this girl, imagine how bad it is for everyone else.” I think it’s safe to say that no one likes the job search process, especially when it’s your first job. Going on dozens of interviews and not having any of them pan out is embarrassing and disheartening. [I think Post Grad covered that fairly well.] Repeated job rejection getting to be a universal human experience, and that’s pretty depressing.
So, good luck, Bee, and I admire that you’re choosing a career other than the one where it would be super easy for you.
Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron is on the cover of the September issue of Vogue. Of course, there’s lots of stuff about fashion, but she also talks about her more philanthropic efforts:
“This is the Asian club right here,” she says, introducing the head of her film division and the woman in charge of her Africa Outreach Project. The two Japanese-Americans, Beth Kono and Ashlee Irish, started out as assistants and then took on more and more responsibilities: Kono develops scripts for Denver & Delilah Films (named for two of Theron’s dogs), and Irish keeps track of Theron’s charity work; lately it has focused on equipping trailers with computers and mobile health clinics, which then travel continuously through remote parts of South Africa, where teenagers have a nearly 50 percent chance of contracting HIV during their lifetime.
Charlize is starting to sound like a one-woman Former Assistants Done Good factory. More celebrities should follow her lead.
As its newsstand sales plummet and the entire magazine industry is in freefall, Vogue magazine has had to do things it never would have done in the past. Instead of only write about luxury and expensive things and people who are ten times more beautiful and fabulous than you’ll ever be, they have to occasionally look like they’re in touch with the regular folk. That’s why on the cover of the May issue there’s a headline that would be right at home on any magazine in your grocery store aisle – “You’re Fired! Surviving and Thriving After the Pink Slip.” However, because this is Vogue, the story isn’t about a working class person who got laid off and is struggling to make ends meet. Instead, it’s a first person essay by longtime Village Voice fashion writer Lynn Yaeger (pictured at left), who was laid off last year. While I think Yaeger is a good writer and her firing from the Voice was upsetting, I have a really hard time a) identifying with her, and b) not rolling my eyes continually during her article. If Yaeger wrote her piece [which is not available online, or I'd link to it] in bullet points, here’s what she’d advise you to do in your own layoff situation:
Gawker.com is reporting that publishing behemoth Conde Nast (home to Vogue, Vanity Fair, and other illustrious titles) is laying off almost all of their receptionists.
Tipsters tell us that the receptionists—who sit on each floor to greet and announce visitors, receive packages, and answer phones—will have their last day on Friday. Sad! They’re naturally some of the most popular people in the building, being the only ones with a professional obligation to smile at everyone and act civil and useful.
On top of that, this move is probably a part of CEO Charles Townsend’s latest round of company-wide cutbacks, but it can’t be saving Conde that much money—the receptionists are some of the lowest-paid (if not the lowest-paid) people in the whole building.
Sounds like a sad day over at Conde Nast – just last month they tightened the budgets of already-overworked assistants. If you’re one of the laid off receptionists and want to share your story, email me at contact@savetheassistants.com. I wonder why it is that the people who get fired are always the underpaid admins, not the overpaid executives whose bad business decisions got the company in trouble in the first place?
A few weeks ago, we reported on news that hockey player Sean Avery was working as an intern at Vogue magazine. However, his duties weren’t much like that of a typical intern: he got to present at the FiFi Awards and rumors swirled that he would appear on the cover of sibling publication Men’s Vogue.
Now, some real (but nameless) Vogue interns have told Radar magazine that Sean is in no way getting the standard intern treatment. Intern Ashley reports that, unlike Avery, interns don’t get a company email address, any pay (he’s getting minimum wage), meeting invitations, event invitations, or face time with executives.
Not too shocking. But this slideshow of Avery in “intern” mode is pretty hilarious–unintentionally, of course.
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