Editor's Letter

Substance and Style

In the last twelve months some of you have written to ask what has happened to special correspondent Marie Brenner. The answer is on page 78. In 1986, Brenner went to Louisville for V.F. to chronicle the collapse of the Bingham media empire. The material she found was so rich she quickly realized she had the makings of a book. Our pre-publication extracts of her House of Dreams suggest she also has the makings of a best-seller. What looked like the story of a newspaper business turned out to be the story of a marriage. The dynastic saga has a powerful central theme. The love match of its main characters, Louisville Courier-Journal owners Mary and Barry Bingham, is so glorious, so absorbing, it shuts out everybody else, including their children. As the family collapses, shattered by tragic accidents, sickness, and infighting, their enduring romance takes on an almost sinister quality. It is Marie Brenner's reporting at its best, and we are glad to have her back.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America has voted V.F. the magazine of the year for taking "high style in writing and photography to a new standard of art, elegance and grace." We're happy to accept the award for bringing matters of style to people of substance, and vice versa. A sense of surface is as much a part of V.F.'s brief as a sense of the depths that need to be explored. And we like to think some of the famous surfaces we've celebrated show a new point of view. Some that spring to mind are: Gloria Steinem in a short, short skirt, photographed by Albert Watson; Bianca Jagger's unzipped back, by Patrick Demarchelier; Bette Midler sparkling under an outsize orange hat, by Herb Ritts; and Diane Sawyer's after-dinner look, by Annie Leibovitz, which prompted a chauvinist flak attack from all the men who want her job. Style reporter Andre Leon Talley used to wave his wand over these transformations, and now Marina Schiano, previously of Yves Saint Laurent and Calvin Klein, has come aboard as V.F.'s style director and mistress of the robes.

Sometimes, of course, we also cover the stars of the style industry itself. Often, the more exposure a person gets, the less you know about him. Ralph Lauren may star in his own advertising campaigns, yet he is the most enigmatic, inaccessible designer on Seventh Avenue. This month, when writer Brooke Hayward and photographer Bruce Weber visit Lauren's Colorado ranch, we find out how someone like Lauren can preserve his privacy (page 102). For once, it's nice to report, the medium equals the message.

Editor in chief