After seven years as editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris (1994 to 2001), Joan Juliet Buck was abruptly fired and given a severance that was contingent upon her going to rehab for a drug problem she didn’t have. Eleven years later, American Vogue declined to renew her longstanding contributor contract following a highly controversial story she’d written on the first lady of Syria, reportedly assigned to her by Anna Wintour.
The course of Buck’s career reads like fiction, and her personal life — she had celebrity acquaintances and rubbed elbows with designers long before her first byline — has followed the same path: Peter O’Toole was her father’s business partner. Anjelica Huston was her frenemy. She had a love affair with Donald Sutherland. Karl Lagerfeld made her wedding dress.
In “The Price of Illusion,” Buck’s 400-page (it was edited down from 1050 pages, according to the writer) memoir-slash-tell-all released earlier this week, she recounts the highs and lows of her sixty-plus years, including moving to Paris, boosting Vogue Paris’s circulation by 40 percent and getting schooled on style by French fashion editor Carine Roitfeld.
“The book is very honest. And it’s as honest about me as it is about anybody else in it,” Buck told Glossy, during a recent phone interview — which was also pretty honest. On top of Vogue’s “diva” expectations and lackluster employee uniform, she addressed the scheming that likely led to her departure from two different editions of the iconic publication.
“I’m a really hard worker, and I can write,” she said. “But I’m not very good at figuring out the shit that’s going on behind my back.”
Looking back, what do you think Vogue Paris was looking for in an editor-in-chief?
They were looking for a diva. I could have been grander. French women are born wearing high heels, and even though I speak perfect French, I wasn’t born with heels on. I think the constant pain from the shoes I was trying to wear probably made me look a little sour.
How would you describe the culture at Vogue?
Vogue was this entity — it’s a very potent thing. And if you work for Vogue, you think that you have a mandate to create beauty and to be beautiful, and to be a certain way. I thought everybody would be wearing absolutely extraordinary clothes, but they were all wearing pencil skirts and really high heels, and little sweaters, and that was it. When I wore that, my heels weren’t quite as high, so I really looked more like I worked in the accounting department.
You talk about your clothes throughout your book. Were you always into fashion?
I always had an enormous amount of fun with clothes. I think that, if you’re going to make an effort, you’re should make yourself look like something, or like someone who’s not quite you. But at French Vogue, I had less freedom to play with my clothes. My imagination was a little bit stymied by the fact that I had to take it seriously.
What changes did you make to the magazine?
I tripled the volume of text, and I took out most of the adjectives. I also had people write about really interesting things. I did more of what, say, Adam Moss is doing at New York Magazine. When a squat took over a building in this very fancy part of Paris, Saint-Germain, I sent one of my editors to report on it.
What were the biggest obstacles, bouncing to a French publication from the States?
I arrived without a plan, without a group, without a staff. I didn’t bring in my three assistants and my art director — I had to meet strangers and bring them in. And things don’t always translate between America and France: American Vogue would always have The American Woman issue, and that was like, “Oh, great! Yes! The American Woman!” It was kind of feminist. When you say The French Woman, it has all of these other connotations. I put it the cover, and it was [seen as] funny. I never said “La Femme Française” again.
How do you think you’d fare as an editor in 2017?
I can’t tell you, because I haven’t actually been inside a magazine office in about seven years. I know the budgets have been cut terribly, everywhere. I think they’ve gotten rid of a lot of copy editors and fact-checkers, which to me are the soul of the magazine. I brought in fact-checkers at Vogue Paris. I also commissioned articles in English — though they were always translated into this fanciful, annoying French. I eventually had to find a translator who translated thrillers to make it work.
How do you feel about your time at Vogue, looking back?
I wish I had enjoyed it more, and I wish I had had more social skills. But I always loved working with other people when they’re at the peak of their creativity and their hard work, to feel the creativity of a group come alive. It was exalting was to see how an idea would be born and suddenly start to take shape, and people would get excited and unite over something.
What do you think about fashion today?
When I’m walking through a department store, I’m seeing a lot of clothes that look like hospital gowns, and I wonder why. I think that beautiful clothes should have a shape. But I am also very grateful that Uniqlo exists.
You wear Uniqlo?
My daily uniform upstate is a Uniqlo Heattech T-shirt — there are some that were designed by Celia Birtwell in 2013; those are the best ones. I wear those and Patagonia Polartec hoodies, and Uniqlo makes some really good, really thick Heattech sweaters. They age very badly, but that’s okay. You kind of want to look scary when you live in the country.
Other than your clothes, what has changed since your Vogue days?
Well, there’s a lot less money! But, my time is my own, and I owe nothing to anyone.
Does it blow your mind that your former colleagues, like Carine Roitfeld, are still in the fashion game?
This is what they do, and this is what they know how to do. What I know how to do is to write. I’m never happier than when I’m writing, or when I’m rehearsing a play. It’s the same kind of thing: It’s being in the middle of the work, without thinking of the outside world.
Do you still have a fashion squad of sorts?
After Vogue, two people came into my life at the exact moment when everything else was disappearing: Christopher Niquet, who is a brilliant stylist, writer and reader, and his boyfriend, Zac Posen. I wouldn’t say it is a fashion squad, but here are two people in fashion who are very close to me. And we talk about books and movies, and food. We don’t talk about fashion.
That’s a solid squad.
Oh, and the Missoni family! When I read on the front page of the New York Times that Angela Missoni had made 1200 pussy hats and put them on the seats of all of the guests at her [fall 2017] show, I thought, “She’s doing the right thing.” And I immediately sent her an email that basically said, “I want a pussy hat, now.”
The accessory of the season, right?
It’s very funny about the pussy hat. When it first started [to catch on], I thought it was a stupid idea. And then, when I saw the photographs of the marches, those pink hats made the crowds look like fields of flowers — they weren’t ugly! It’s the intersection of fashion and politics. I think what’s going to come forth, politically, is that women across the world are going to be the ones to make the change.
What other designers are “doing the right thing”?
I love my classics that have been with me all my life, like my Sonia Rykiel. [The brand] makes a woman look more beautiful when she’s got it on than when she doesn’t — which is not the case of those hospital-gown dresses.
One more question…
Comfortable shoes. Whatever it is, the answer is: a pair of comfortable shoes.
Image via Harper’s Bazaar
