SMILING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE

—

In the past few weeks, Will Welch has taken a bit of flack for letting Beyoncé promote her new whiskey label on the cover of GQ’s October issue, with an interview that one X user described as “an intimate email exchange between GQ and several layers of Beyonce’s comms team.”

Whether that kind of thing rankles you or not—and yes, we asked him about it—in the five years since Welch took over, GQ seems to be doing as well or better than everybody else in the industry. Why? Ask around. He’s got a direct line to celebrities, who consider him a personal friend. He’s got real credibility with The Fashion People. And because of both of these things, advertisers love him.

Perhaps most importantly, his boss Anna Wintour loves him.

The Atlanta-born Welch started his career at the alternative music and culture mag the Fader in the early aughts, and jumped to GQ in 2007. For a decade under EIC Jim Nelson, he operated as the magazine’s fashion-and-culture svengali, eventually becoming the creative director of the magazine and the editor of the brand’s fashion spinoff, GQ Style.

In 2019, Wintour tapped him for the big job: Editor-in-Chief of GQ—a title that in 2020 was recast in the current Condé Nast survival-mode as Global Editorial Director of GQ, overseeing 19 editions around the world.

After speaking with Welch only a few hours after the Beyonce cover dropped, we get what all the fuss is about. He is a great sport with good hair and just enough of a Southern accent who is confident-yet-never-cocky about his mission at GQ.

Let other people bemoan the “death of print.” Will Welch is having a blast at the Last Supper.

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2024

WHEN ‘HOUSE’ IS NOT A HOME

—

Dominique Browning jokes that after the interview for this episode, she might end up having PTSD. After more than 30 years writing and editing at some of the top magazines in the world, Browning has blocked a lot of it out.

And after listening today, you’ll understand why.

At Esquire, where she worked early in her career, Browning says she cried nearly every day. There were men yelling and people quitting. Apartment keys being dropped off with mistresses. A flash, even, of a loaded gun in a desk drawer.

At House & Garden, where she ended her magazine career in 2007 after 13 years as the editor-in-chief, the chaos was less Mad Men and more Devil Wears Prada. It was glitzy Manhattan lunches mixed with fierce competition and co-workers who complained that her wardrobe wasn’t “designer” enough. The day she took the job, she says she felt like she had walked into Grimm’s Fairy Tales. (Her friends had warned her that it was going to be a snake pit.)

When the magazine unexpectedly folded on a Monday, she and her staff were told they had until Friday to clear out their offices. “Without warning,” she says, “our world collapsed.”

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2024

VIVE LA CREATIVITE!

—

There are many reasons for you to hate Fabien Baron (especially if you’re the jealous type).

Here are 7 of them:

• He’s French, which means, among other things, his accent is way sexier than yours.

• He’s spent an inordinate amount of time in the company of supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Kate Moss.

• He gets all of his Calvin Klein undies for free.

• Ditto any swag from his other clients: Dior, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, or Armani.

• When he tired of just designing magazines, magazines went and made him their editor-in-chief.

• He was intimately involved in the making of Madonna’s notorious book, Sex. How intimately? We were afraid to ask.

• Also? Vanity Fair called him “The Most Sought-After Creative Director in the World.”

With our pity party concluded, we admit “hate” was probably the wrong word, because after spending time talking to him, it’s easy to see why Baron has been able to live the kind of life many magazine creatives dream of—and why he’s been so incredibly successful.

His enthusiasm is contagious. It’s actually his super power. And it’s a lesson for all of us. When you get next-level excited, as Baron does when he can see the possibilities in a project, his passion infects everybody in the room.

And then, when you learn that Baron believes he’s doing what he was put on this earth to do, and claims that he would do it all for free. You’ve kind of got to believe him.

I never, ever worried about money. I never took a job because of the money. Because I think integrity is very important. I think, like believing that you have a path and that you’re going to follow that path and you’re going to stay on that path and that you’re going to stick to that. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Welcome to Season 5 of Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!)

—

This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.

Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2024