Well, I did, but it wasn’t what I expected. What I learned was that the New York Times was quite willing to publish a thick magazine that was nothing but a wet kiss to its advertisers, a thick magazine that contained not one word that was intelligent, and not one that wasn’t sycophantic to the point of shamelessness in the praise of over-priced 5th Avenue self-indulgence. The massive changes in fashion as ordinary people actually experience it—increased affluence, synthetic fabrics, the “new” informality, jeans, running shoes, you name it—were studiously ignored in favor of 50 years of fashion week drivel. Most remarkable of all, I saw not a single non-white face in the hundreds of photos that filled the special issue’s pages.
Well, now it’s 20 years later, and you can’t say that things haven’t changed. Last week the Times premiered its new fashion magazine, “T,” and, as NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan reports, Susan Clark of Annandale, Va., was on the case:
There is a complete absence of any people of color in articles or fashion shoots. I assume the ads cannot be controlled, but I saw only one African-American and one Asian-American among the thousands of models in the ads.
As near as I can tell, there was one black face in the entire magazine, as many as there were purple plastic faces. I realize that it is all advertising, but doesn’t The Times have some responsibility to ensure that something it publishes should look at least a little like 21st-century America?
Afterwords
Left unexplored by curiously courteous Ms. Sullivan are the questions whether 1) the only people who read “T” live in the DC suburbs or whether 2) only people in the DC suburbs give a damn about the pathetic self-absorption of the well-respected Deborah Needleman.*
*Despite Maggie’s cheerful head, “T Magazine’s New Editor Pledges to Make Future Issues More Diverse,” note that Deborah didn’t actually promise to do that—“it is my belief that quality and good journalism appeal to all of us regardless of our specific ethnic origins” sounds a lot like “if the photos are fabulous who cares if the models are all white? I sure don’t.”
