Hasta La Ideas

“Shortly after I met Glenda Bailey at Iman‘s birthday party, I became the new creative director of Harper’s Bazaar. It happened that fast. The press described it as ‘the unexpected Bailey-Gan cocktail,’ and I remember thinking how appropriate that we met at a party, and whether delicious or lethal, who doesn’t love a cocktail?

We both agreed that the most obvious thing was to bring back the old Didot logo that Alexey Brodovitch had started. I recall looking at the first issue that we put it on and thinking that it felt like repairing an institution. You had the feeling you were doing something proper. It was the same feeling I had on my first day at Bazaar when I receied a handwritten note from Dick Avedon, congratulating me and asking Glenda and I to come by his studio. It felt like visiting the godfather, like you needed his blessing if you were going to be doing this job. And in a way, he did give us his blessing by allowing us to republish engraver’s prints of couture pictures he had done for Bazaar in the ’50s.”

–Stephen Gan, in his foreword to the stunning new book, Harper’s Bazaar: Greatest Hits (Abrams). A companion exhibition, “Harper’s Bazaar: A Decade of Style,” is on view through January 8 at the International Center of Photography in New York.

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