BLOW-UP: When Liz Tilberis Transformed Bazaar

a six-part documentary podcast about fashion's forgotten queen and the biggest moment in Nineties fashion.

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Cohosts Dennis Golonka and Cynthia True talk to supermodel Christy Turlington about the pivotal role Liz Tilberis played in her early career, what made their relationship unusual in fashion--and her take on what the 90s was really like.

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In 1992, Vogue was, as it is today, the global fashion authority, and Anna Wintour was its already-famous leader. But an upset—to this day, the only one of Wintour’s reign— was in the offing. Just a few days into the New Year, Hearst announced they were reviving the long-comatose Harper’s Bazaar, which was once Vogue’s greatest rival. And they were bringing in Liz Tilberis, the warm white-haired size-twelve editor of British Vogue—and Anna Wintour’s former second in command—to lead the charge. In “Enter Elegance,” we tell the story of the editorial dream team that Liz gathered to her side, the super-secret September launch, and the magazine cover that shook the industry and announced the new Nineties minimalism.
This episode includes our memories as assistants at Liz Tilberis’s new Bazaar and conversations with former Bazaar staff, including creative director Fabien Baron and editors Paul Cavaco, Tonne Goodman, and Richard Sinnott. Plus, Linda Evangelista, Isaac Mizrahi, and Liz’s best friend, former Vogue creative director Grace Coddington.

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Liz Tilberis was nice. Legendarily nice. People claimed that when she fired an editor, they left feeling they’d won something. (They usually left with a chic little gift, too.) In this episode, we explore the way that Liz’s natural warmth and ability to charm assistants and royalty alike made her not only something of a unicorn in fashion but fueled her ascent from Sixties London art student to editor of British Vogue and contributed to the unlikely success of her Harper’s Bazaar.
With Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Grace Coddington, and Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Princess Diana.

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Less than two years into Bazaar’s triumphant return, the magazine’s spare sculptural look was being imitated everywhere. Bazaar had, practically overnight, defined a new visual landscape. But as the competition scrambled to copy Fabien’s innovative use of typography and negative space, Liz and Fab kept moving, mixing supermodels and street photographers, grunge and glam, punk and posh. In this episode, we talk to Fabien Baron, Paul Cavaco, Linda Evangelista, Tonne Goodman, Elissa Santisi, David Sims, Richard Sinnott, Mario Sorrenti, and Amber Valletta about some of the most important fashion shoots of the Nineties, stories still widely referenced today.

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