Joan Juliet Buck (born 1948) is an American writer and actress. She was the editor-in-chief of French Vogue from 1994 to 2001, the only American ever to have edited a French magazine.[1] She was contributing editor to Vogue and Vanity Fair for many years, and writes for Harper's Bazaar. The author of two novels, she published a memoir, The Price of Illusion, in 2017. In 2020, she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for her short story, “Corona Diary.”
Born in 1948,[2] she is the only child of Jules Buck (1917–2001), an American film producer, who moved his family to Europe in 1952 in reaction to the political repression in the United States at the time. Her mother, Joyce Ruth Getz (aka Joyce Gates, died 1996), was a child model and actress, and interior designer.[3][4] Jules Buck served in the Signal Corps with John Huston, during the war,[5] and he subsequently served as a cameraman for the latter.[6] Huston was the best man at her parents' 1945 wedding, and Joan Juliet learned to cook from Ricki Huston.[7]
Buck grew up in Cannes, Paris, and London.[8] As a teenager she met Tom Wolfe and became the subject of his piece, "The Life and Hard Times of a Teenage London Society Girl,"[9] which he republished in The Pump House Gang.[10]
Buck's first language is French and she identifies as Jewish.[11]
She became the features editor of British Vogue at the age of 23, then a correspondent for Women's Wear Daily in London and Rome. She was an associate editor of the London Observer between the times she worked for Women's Wear Daily and her work for Vogue and Vanity Fair in New York City.
French Vogue, 1994-2001
She was French Vogue's editor-in-chief from 1994 to 2001,[21][12] having initially refused the offer twice.[8]The New York Times described her selection as indication that Condé Nast intended to "modernize the magazine and expand its scope" from its circulation of 80,000.[22]
Buck replaced Helmut Newton with David LaChapelle and other young American photographers and hired American writers and tripled the text.[8] Her first September cover was "La Femme Française," and she had a quantum physics-themed issue.[23]
Buck doubled the magazine's circulation and produced thematic year-end issues on cinema, art, music, sex, and theater.[24] Looking back she described what she envisioned for her employees then: "I wanted the magazine to be fun. I wanted everyone who worked on the magazine to go toward what they liked. Again, it’s that distinction between what you should do and what’s expected, and what you feel, what you want."[16] In the Price of Illusion, she talks about wanting to upend French cliches such as black sweaters and Helmut Newton-referencing shoots; "French women know how to dress when they’re having sex. They need to know how to dress when they’re not having sex."[25] Penelope Green of The New York Times wrote that Buck "upended what had been the magazine's rather staid coverage."[10]
She has appeared in numerous documentaries, among them James Kent's Fashion Victim, the Killing of Gianni Versace, Mark Kidel's Paris Whorehouse and Architecture of the Imagination. Buck narrated James Crump's 2007 documentary Black, White + Gray, about art collector Sam Wagstaff and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.[37]
In the early 2010s, she wrote for T magazine, The New York Times's fashion magazine, W, and The Daily Beast, among others,[38][39][40] and was the consulting editor to Dasha Zhukova's Garage magazine which The New York Times called "one of the most intriguing magazines to come along in years."[41][42][43] Her humorous cultural pieces for T included subjects like the culture of high-end bedding and the cross-country tour of The Moth storytelling series, in which she participated in 2009 and 2012.[44][45] For W she covered photographer Taryn Simon, the history of the social scene in Palm Springs, and the contemporary femme fatale.[46][47][48]
In 2009, she appeared in an action theater piece during Performa09 at New York City's White Slab Palace.[58] Curated by Michael Portnoy and Sarina Basta,[59] Buck and another actor held a conversation guided by a third actor's random flashing of prompt cards.
In May 2012, she appeared with comedian Eugene Mirman, performers Ira Glass, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and Amber Tamblyn in a night of interpretations of the Joan of Arc narrative at the Littlefield, a Brooklyn performance space.[64] In 2015, Buck appeared in the Supergirl episode "Red Faced," playing Katherine Grant, the mother of CatCo founder Cat Grant.[65]
As a child, Buck was cast as a Scots waif in the Walt Disney film Greyfriars Bobby.[68]
Novels and adaptations
Buck's novels about multicultural expatriates are The Only Place To Be published by Random House in 1982 and Daughter of the Swan published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1987.[69][70] She was one of a long line of writers commissioned to adapt D. M. Thomas's novel The White Hotel. Her version was singled out by Thomas as "faithful and intelligent" among versions that included ones by the writer himself and Dennis Potter but the film has never been made.[71]
In 2009, the story "The Ghost of the Rue Jacob"[72] was a big hit at The Moth. In February 2012, Buck went on "The Unchained Tour of Georgia" headed by George Green, founder of The Moth, on a remodeled 1975 Bluebird schoolbus funded by Kickstarter. It was a hit of the independent bookstores of the state plus Jacksonville.[73][74]
The Price of Illusion and other recent work
In 2017, she published her memoir of her life in Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, New York, London and Santa Fe from the '60s through the '90s. It was reviewed favorably by The New York Times, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, among other places,[75][76] and was an Amazon Editors' Pick and an "Oprah Pick".[77] It was also a starred Publishers Weekly review, and Kirkus Reviews described it as “relentlessly candid and often absorbing account of a complex life spent in and out of the fashion spotlight."[78][79]
It was excerpted in New York magazine in February 2017[80] and published in paperback in November 2017.[81] It was released as an audiobook on Audible in May 2018.
In 2020, Buck contributed to “Corona Diary,” for the literary magazine Stat o Rec's anthology, Writing the Virus. It was nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize.[82]
Asma al-Assad article
In its March 2011 issue, Vogue published Buck's profile on Asma al-Assad, wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, describing her as "glamorous, young and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She's a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement." The piece was strongly criticized in the US media as reports of al-Assad's violent repression[83] began to emerge in mid-March. In April, former Atlantic writer-editor Max Fisher[84] attacked it as an ill-timed "puff piece."[85]The Washington Post's Paul Farhi wrote, "It may have been the worst-timed, and most tin-eared, magazine article in decades."[86] "It seems that Ms. Buck's aim was more public relations spin than reportage,” wrote Bari Weiss and David Feith in The Wall Street Journal.[87]
Although it acknowledged that the article had taken "more than a year" to cultivate,[85]Vogue removed it from its website in May 2011.[86]The New York Times subsequently reported that the Assad "family paid the Washington public relations firm Brown Lloyd James $5,000 a month to act as a liaison between Vogue and the first lady, according to the firm."[88]
In The Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin also wrote: "It was the Washington liberal foreign policy community that, for years, had fancied Bashar al-Assad as a constructive player in the Middle East." Quoting Lee Smith, Rubin pointed out that John Kerry, Teresa Heinz, and James A. Baker, among others, courted Assad in an attempt to sway him from Iran. "American liberals and Republican realpolitikers were every bit as sycophantic and deluded as Buck," she wrote.[89] Buck's contract with Vogue, however, was not renewed.[1][12] (In May 2022, in a business article for Washington Post about a new Anna Wintour biography, Bloomberg's Adrian Wooldridge wrote that Wintour's decision to commission the piece "went against stiff internal opposition" and that it was Buck, "a Wintour friend," as the author of the piece, "who got the chop."[90])
Buck subsequently wrote in Newsweek that she had not wanted to write the story,[91] and the explanation generated controversy.[92] In The Guardian, Homa Khaleeli wrote, "It's hard to tell if Buck asked Asma—or Bashar whom she also met—any real questions at all."[93] The Vogue article was satirized in The Philadelphia Inquirer,[94] and it was republished in Gawker in September 2013.[95]
Six years later, Buck recalled that she was "tainted, like a leper" and that "There was so much opprobrium sticking to me. I was so flayed. My life as I knew it had vanished."[10] Will Pavia of the London Times later wrote that the magazine "left Buck twisting in the wind.... It's hard not to think that Wintour contributed to Buck's woes."[23]
Linda Evangelista is a Canadian fashion model. She is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential models of all time, and has been featured on over 700 magazine covers. Evangelista is primarily known for being the longtime "muse" of photographer Steven Meisel, as well as for the phrase: "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day."
Diana Vreeland was an American fashion columnist and editor. She worked for the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar and as editor-in-chief at Vogue, later becoming a special consultant to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was named on the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1964. Vreeland coined the term youthquake in 1965.
Vogue is an American monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine that covers various topics, including haute couture fashion, beauty, culture, living, and runway. Based at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, Vogue began in 1892 as a weekly newspaper before becoming a monthly magazine years later. Since its founding, Vogue has featured numerous actors, musicians, models, athletes, and other prominent celebrities. The largest issue published by Vogue magazine was the September 2012 edition featuring Lady Gaga in the cover, which contained 900 pages.
Dame Anna Wintour is a British and American media executive based in New York City who has served as editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988. Wintour has also served as global chief content officer for Condé Nast since 2020, where she oversees Condé Nast magazines worldwide, and concurrently serves as artistic director of Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue. With her trademark pageboy bob haircut and dark sunglasses, Wintour is regarded as the most powerful woman in publishing and has become an important figure in the fashion world. Wintour is praised for her skill in identifying emerging fashion trends, but her reportedly aloof and demanding personality has earned her the nickname "Nuclear Wintour".
Alexandra Shulman is a British journalist. She is a former Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue, and became the longest serving Editor in the history of the publication. After assuming the role in 1992, she presided over a circulation increase to 200,000. Shulman is reputedly one of the country's most oft-quoted voices on fashion trends. In addition to her work with Vogue, Shulman has written columns for The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, as well as a novel.
Elizabeth Jane Tilberis was a British fashion magazine editor of Manx and English ancestry.
Asma Fawaz al-Assad is the First Lady of Syria. Born and raised in London to Syrian parents, she is married to the 19th and current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.
Chanel Iman Robinson is an American model who has worked as a Victoria's Secret Angel. Vogue Paris declared her as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s.
Derek Charles Blasberg is an American writer, socialite, author, and television personality who works in the fashion industry. As of 2018, he is the head of fashion and beauty partnerships at YouTube and is a senior staffer at Gagosian.
Daphne Diana Joan Susanna Guinness is an English fashion designer, socialite, actress, film producer, and musician.
Karlie Elizabeth Kloss is an American fashion model. Vogue Paris declared her one of the "top 30 models of the 2000s" when she was 17. Kloss was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2013 until 2015; she resigned to study at New York University. Models.com has said that Kloss "represents the gold standard of modeling—a girl with the look, the poise, and the drive to take things to the next level", and she ranks on their "New Supers" and "Money Girl" lists. By 2019, she had appeared on 40 international Vogue covers.
British Vogue is a British fashion magazine based in London and first published in 1916. It is the British edition of the American magazine Vogue and is owned and distributed by Condé Nast. Currently edited by Edward Enninful, British Vogue is said to link fashion to high society and class, teaching its readers how to 'assume a distinctively chic and modern appearance'.
Darya "Dasha" Alexandrovna Zhukova is a Russian-American art collector, businesswoman, magazine editor, and socialite. She is the founder of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and Garage Magazine.
Emmanuelle Alt is a French fashion editor who was the editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris from February 2011, succeeding Carine Roitfeld, to May 2021.
Vogue France is the French edition of Vogue magazine, formerly called Vogue Paris from its inception until 2021. The magazine started publication in 1920 and has since been regarded as one of the top fashion publications.
Beatrix Molineux Miller, CBE was a British fashion and cultural magazine editor. She was editor of Queen from 1958 to 1964, and editor of British Vogue from 1964 to 1985.
Pamela Rosalind Grace Coddington is a Welsh former model and former creative director at-large of American Vogue magazine. Coddington is known for the creation of large, complex and dramatic photoshoots. A Guardian profile wrote that she "has produced some of fashion's most memorable imagery. Her pictures might be jolly and decadent or moody and mysterious."
Katherine Hadley Betts is an American fashion journalist. Currently she is a contributing editor at Time and The Daily Beast, among other freelance writing positions, and reporting on fashion for CNN. She lives in New York with her family.
Imaan Hammam is a Dutch fashion model. As of 2020, she has appeared on the cover of Vogue 18 times, four times on the American edition. She currently ranks on models.com's "Industry Icons" and was ranked on its "Top Sexiest Models" lists. As of 2021, she has appeared on The Big Four covers of Vogue.
Jennifer Hocking (1929–2011) was an Australian-born British-based fashion model in the 1950s and early 1960s, who then became fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar and Queen. Whilst there, she gave Anna Wintour her first magazine job. Hocking then pursued fashion design, before rediscovering success as a mature model in the 1990s, when she was described as a "grande dame" after her appearance in Mario Testino's shoots for Burberry.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
