Product Description

Vanity Fair covers the people, issues, and events that define our times. This chronicle of contemporary culture provides access to the movers and shakers in film, music, entertainment, sports, business, and politics. With articles by renowned writers and images by award-winning photographers, every issue of Vanity Fair is always fascinating, never ordinary.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9 in Magazine Subscriptions
• Formats: Magazine Subscription, Print

Amazon.com Review

Who Reads Vanity Fair? Smart, stylish, and voraciously interested in the world, Vanity Fair readers have an extraordinary ability to discern what is truly worth their time, attention, and money. It is essential for Vanity Fair readers to be conversant in a wide range of topics—from global issues, economics, and travel, to beauty, fashion, and entertainment—and they pursue the knowledge of these subjects with an unusual intensity. Vanity Fair readers actively seek out friends and colleagues with whom they share ideas and experiences, creating a diverse and eclectic network of peers. Known for its ability to "ignite a dinner party at 50 yards," Vanity Fair is meant for readers who enjoy expert-level knowledge and lively, spirited debate.

What You Can Expect in Each Issue:

• Fanfair: Vanity Fair’s monthly guide to truly unique and talked-about cultural events around the world, hot new CD’s, books, and films; groundbreaking art and design; exhibitions and theatrical events; fashion, beauty, and travel trends.
• Fairground: The magazine brings its discriminating eye into the world’s most exclusive events, capturing candid snapshots of the culture’s rich, famous, and iconic. This pictorial feature goes around the world, one party at a time.
• Columns: Insightful essays by distinguished writers, such as Dominick Dunne, James Wolcott, and Michael Wolff, cover the most relevant topics of the day. These investigations on crime, politics, business, society, the media, and current events are often touted on the cover and have a dedicated following.
• Vanities: Short takes on today’s most compelling personalities, Vanities is a reader favorite, incorporating splashy graphics and quick wit.
• Spotlight: Spotlight shines a light on the stars of the future. Former discoveries include Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Lopez, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Gwyneth Paltrow, all before they made it big.
• Proust Questionnaire: An update of the 19th-century parlor game, this classic Q&A features a different celebrity subject every month.
• Features: In-depth, award-winning stories about entertainment, the arts, business, politics, fashion, design, and more, are at the heart of the magazine each month.

Past Issues:

Contributors:
With every issue, Vanity Fair allows its contributors the freedom to indulge in extraordinary storytelling, making it a destination for the world’s most renowned photographers and award-winning journalists, such as Marie Brenner, Bryan Burrough, Bob Colacello, Amy Fine Collins, Dominick Dunne, Christopher Hitchens, Sebastian Junger, William Langewiesche, Maureen Orth, Todd Purdum, James Wolcott, and Michael Wolff; and photographers such as Jonathan Becker, Harry Benson, Patrick Demarchelier, Todd Eberle, Larry Fink, Jonas Karlsson, Annie Leibovitz, Tim Hetherington, Norman Jean Roy, Mark Seliger, Mario Testino, and Bruce Weber.

Magazine Layout:
With a dynamic combination of big pictures and big stories, Vanity Fair delivers both bold, beautiful photography and the very best thought-provoking journalism in a clean, bold design that is simple yet sophisticated, minimal yet full of restrained energy. When it comes to visually expressing the passions of its stable of photographers, illustrators, writers, and editors, the magazine must look as smart and powerful as the topics it covers.

Comparisons to Other Magazines:
With a broad range of interesting subjects, Vanity Fair is a general interest magazine that captures the best of the best, from world affairs to entertainment, business to style, design to society. Vanity Fair is unique in its ability to act as a cultural catalyst—a magazine that provokes and drives the popular dialogue. No other magazine can match Vanity Fair's unique mix of stunning photography, in-depth reportage, and social commentary. Each month, Vanity Fair accelerates ideas and images to center stage, creating an unrivaled media event that attracts millions of modern, sophisticated readers.

Advertising:
Vanity Fair's advertisers are as eclectic as the editorial content. Fashion and retail advertisers are responsible for the majority of Vanity Fair's ad pages, but other advertising partners stem from a wide array of consumer categories, including automotive, financial institutions, not-for-profits, corporate entities, beauty, travel, entertainment/media, home furnishings, food, and wine and spirits. On average, a little more than half of the pages in Vanity Fair are devoted to advertising (56%).

Awards:

• The American Society of Magazine Editors has nominated Vanity Fair for 63 National Magazine Awards since 1984; the magazine has won 15 times
• Winner of National Magazine Awards for Reporting and Photo Portfolio, 2008
• Winner of National Magazine Award, Columns & Commentary 2007
• Winner of National Magazine Award, Public Interest 2007
• Winner of the 51st annual World Press Photo of the Year 2007
• Gold Medal Award, Photography, Spread/Single Page, Society of Publication Designers’ 42nd Annual Competition 2007
• Graydon Carter: The only two-time winner of Adweek magazine's Editor of the Year
• 248 awards for design and photography since 1984
• Included on Adweek’s Hot List nine times–more than any other magazine

Customer Reviews

A great mix of Entertainment, Fashion, and Society..and a great deal
Vanity Fair has undergone a major transformation in the last several years from magazine geared towards women to a monthly that appeals to a much broader audience. The writing has gotten consistently better as well, though the occasional article will be little more than fluff. Photography is always lush, with the art world's top talent contributing beautiful done shots of major stars. Issues like Young Hollywood, or New Music Stars are fantastic, and every issue is something fresh and interesting.

In any given month we get a star showcase on the cover. Recent months have seen Lindsay Lohan, Sandra Bullock, and Hilary Swank. Interviews with these stars are fascinating because they invariably reveal more than they expect to. A recent interview with Sheryl Crow revealed the best of Vanity Fair, an intelligent, emotional, and honest interview that reveals a lot about Sheryl. The acccompanying photography is simply gorgeous. Every month has a rambling diary from the frequently tiresome Dominic Dunne (yes Dom, we get it, you know everyone.), a hard hitting political piece, and a expose on the past of politics, hollywood, or society. The articles are mostly great stuff, but with some clunkers in every issue. Every time I receive an issue, I know there will be articles that will fascinate me. Friends use to claim that Vanity Fair was a girl's magazine. Well, its not just for women anymore.

That being said, don't just order here. Go to their website and to the subscription inserts in the magazine itself, compare the prices, and request that a billing notice be sent to you instead of paying with a credit card. This way when your subscription is up for renewal, you have the opportunity to cancel without your card being charged. Often times sites like this one utilize a third party service that contracts with the various magazines, your payment goes to them and they auto-renew you. I find it easier to do it through the magazine themselves. Saves me the trouble, and invariably, the magazine comes a lot quicker.

Great mix of gossip and hard news
"Vanity Fair" is head and shoulders above anything else on the magazine rack. On the one hand, it has loads of fun, gossipy stories on celebrities - past and present - combined with state-of-the art work from the premier photographers in the business, including Herb Ritts and Annie Leibowitz. While the articles on entertainment celebrities are usually pure PR fluff pieces, there are also more in-depth articles about the power players behind the scenes and old Hollywood legends. These voyeristic guilty pleasures sit comfortably side-by-side with some of the best serious journalism in print. Month after month, "Vanity Fair" addresses important issues that are only covered superficially in most of the media. The editors aren't afraid to allow their reporters to do long pieces on foreign affairs, politics and the economy. If it's been a major event on the world scene, "Vanity Fair" has covered it, and covered it well. I almost always read it cover to cover, and always come away feeling like it was time well spent.

Beware Vanity Fair Subscription Renewal SCAM
I enjoyed Vanity Fair magazine for several years but I chose to not renew it in January 2005. They sent the usual renewal notices and I tossed them out, and the magazine stopped coming.

Now in July 2005 I got a harassing letter from "National Credit Audit Corporation" threatening me if I don't pay the $15 account. I did not renew this and I don't owe it, but the tone of the letter is serious.

With some research on the Net I see that Vanity Fair is using an unreputable firm to harass people into renewing.

Anyhow this is finally getting picked up by the mainstream media such as the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported that VF's sister publication, WIRED Magazine, is doing the same thing (they are both Conde Naste publications).

NOTE this is NOT related to Amazon.com, and I am not saying if you subscribe via Amazon that this will happen. It seems to be part of a certain low-rate offer that contained certain language about "auto-renewal" that nobody could possibly read, it's so small. I am writing a letter to the magazine, the credit agency, and the attorneys general of New York and Florida.

The magazine is great, the journalism is top rate. But just try to stop your subscription, you might face the same dunning.