EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE CONDÉ NAST’S DECADES OF DECADENCE — SLIMMING MIRRORS, DRUG-RUN LIMO RIDES & ANNA WINTOUR’S $500 LUNCH HABITS
A jaw-dropping look inside the glamorous, wasteful, and wildly indulgent world of old-school Condé Nast.
It was the ultimate fantasyland — where the mirrors made you thinner, lunch came with martinis and martyrs, and the petty cash covered everything from designer suits to drug runs.
Welcome to the Condé Nast of yesterday: a magazine empire so rich in style and scandal, even the assistants had assistants.
According to Empire of the Elite, a bombshell new book by Michael Grynbaum, the now-wobbly publishing giant was once the gold-plated playground of editors like Vogue queen Anna Wintour and Vanity Fair icon Graydon Carter — both of whom enjoyed perks that would make a royal blush.
THE $30 MILLION CAFETERIA WITH SKINNY MIRRORS
When billionaire SI Newhouse moved the media mecca to 4 Times Square in the late ’90s, he spared no expense trying to keep staff happy. How? By commissioning starchitect Frank Gehry to build a $30 million cafeteria — complete with Venetian glass and distorted mirrors designed to make everyone look thinner.
LUNCHTIME GLAM — AND A $14,000 EXPENSE REPORT
While staffers freaked out over closet space and proximity to overpriced grilled eggplant, editors were charging $500 lunches at the Four Seasons to the company tab, expensing multi-country wine tours for “mood setting,” and flying to Milan not to cover fashion — but to order wine for someone who did.
One GQ writer racked up $14K in two weeks. The editor’s response? “Is that all?”
FROM BRIEFCASE PORTERS TO DRUG CHAUFFEURS
Carter had an assistant carry his briefcase into the office every morning “so he could walk through the lobby unencumbered.” Wintour had cappuccinos timed to the second — if they sat longer than two minutes, they were tossed.
Some assistants even used Condé’s private cars for drug runs, Grynbaum reveals.
FIRINGS DONE WITH A WHISPER — AND A LUNCH DATE
When editors got the axe, it was served with a velvet glove. Legendary exec Alex Liberman would gently touch your arm, tell you you’d be fired “tomorrow,” then schedule lunch — at a fancy public place — to soften the blow.
FALCONS, ELEPHANTS, AND TWENTY-THREE TRUNKS OF CLOTHES
Shoots were extravagant to the point of parody. Cartier baubles were smashed for the perfect shot. A Vogue safari spread with Kim Basinger required 23 trunks and a hired falcon — which nearly attacked the actress’s face. Meanwhile, Vanity Fair sent Annie Leibovitz around the world with 2,500 rolls of film to capture “the decade.”
But nothing topped Portfolio magazine’s live elephant photo shoot to symbolize the banking crisis. It cost millions. The mag folded in 2009.
“WE DIDN’T HAVE SHAREHOLDERS” — BUT WE HAD STYLE
Condé Nast didn’t answer to Wall Street — just to Wintour’s watch and Carter’s craving for ashtrays to match his pencils. Staffers were schooled in high society, renamed for chicness, and expected to know Proust’s opening line on demand. Job interviews were culture pop quizzes. Expense accounts were magic carpets.
THE DREAM IS OVER — BUT THE LEGEND LIVES ON
Today, the offices are digital, the magazines gutted, and the fantasyland is fading. But for a glittering, outrageous era, Condé Nast wasn’t just a publisher — it was the party, the playground, and the pulpit for an elite who turned journalism into a jet-set fever dream.
As Carter later wrote: “You never know when you’re in a golden age. You only realize it was a golden age when it’s gone.”
Gone, yes. But oh, what a ride.
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