Vanity Fair Feature Ledes for 2007–8
Red Sails in the Sunset
With its economy on the brink of collapse and one quarter of its population starving, a growing faction of the Communist government of China is anxious to get the United States to pay back the billions of dollars it owes—or face the threat of an all-out war. While America has been fencing with North Korea, China has begun to rattle its saber: Having resumed underground nuclear weapons testing in December of 2006, insiders from Park Avenue to Beijing think war with China is inevitable. David Vance Carmen explores the confrontation on the horizon and looks at how a group of supermodels is trying to ease tensions between the U.S. and the burgeoning superpower.
The Devil in Details
During the high-flying go-go 80s, Details magazine was the ur-Gawker that chronicled New York City’s jet-set art, music, and nightlife scenes with reckless abandon and flint-eyed politics. As the years passed and times changed, Details has become synonymous with men’s fashion, skin care products, and men, men, men … What went wrong? How did things change? And what does the future hold? And when the underground comes overground, can it remain as salient or does it succumb to the perils of mass-media mainstreaming ennui? Steven Saban, Michael Musto, and Steve Blush examine the past, reflect on Cookie Mueller, and wonder about what we are condemned to.
Dead Kennedys?
On the cusp of the new millennium a new generation of Kennedys was positioned to reclaim the grandeur and import of the family name. With John-John gone what remains is a tattersall coat-of-arms which appears to be coming apart at the seams. With a relative (Maria Shriver) married to a California Republican, a Rhode Island representative coming unglued (Patrick), and a social activist becoming a force to be reckoned with (Rory), Dominick Dunne considers the future and ponders the legacy of this Irish-American royal family. What have they inherited; what do they stand to gain, and what is the shape of things to come?
Glamour, Fortune and Claim
The Dondanville family holds titles from England, Poland, and France in its heritage. Its association with the likes of Astors and Vanderbilts is well known throughout American history. Two hundred years after the family patriarch, Theordore Dondanville, first laid claim to land in Virginia, a dispute is rising among the heirs of the family fortune. With works of art which would make Christie’s salivate, and corporate stock holdings in coal, oil, and aerospace worth billions, the seven heirs of the Dondanville fortune are fighting each other in court. Maylene Corgi audits the wealth and profile of the Dondanville heirs, and uncovers the secrets of the Champagne and Ecstasy-drenched days and nights of the so-called Billionaire Brats of Dondanville.
Cindernigella
With a meteoric rise to fame and a cooking empire to watch over, can Nigella Lawson still fit into her glass slippers or has she slipped on her own ball gown? Amy Yacova Siegel investigates the Food Network’s Princess Charming and wonders if her two greatest assets can outshine the stoic legacies of Betty Crocker, Julia Child, and the feisty up-and-coming no-holds-barred Rachael Ray?
