Daily Front Row

2010 August 11

Tonchi's Social Snub, Discussed

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Tinsley Mortimer and Fabiola Beracasa
Getty Images View Gallery

(NEW YORK) High society, where art thou? It's the most shocking subject not covered in Stefano Tonchi's Who What When Where Why of style, and the 10028 set must be trembling all the way from Sant Ambroeus to Soul Cycle. After all, several WWD articles published this spring referenced Team Tonchi's desire to remake W at least somewhat in the image of its founder, John Fairchild. In that world---unforgettable to die-hard fashionettes---designers, socials, celebrities, and politicians were mercilessly discussed in the same breathless paragraphs.

Of course, the world has changed. Tonchi's W is more strictly concerned with Marina Abramovic and Riccardo Tisci than Ali Hilfiger and Helen Lee Schifter. Gone are the glowing party pages, and vanished are those trend stories about makeup artists who deliver house calls before the New Yorkers for Children Fool's Fete. After all, Graydon Carter can always enlist James Reginato to do a thorough, respectful profile of social A-listers like Bunny Mellon, whose secret gardens he reported on so lovingly in August Vanity Fair.

So with trusty Pamela Fiori out of Town & Country, and new EIC Stephen Drucker still a wild card (at least until we see September), what's a vice-chair of ABT to read (about herself)? Well, there's NewYorkSocialDiary.com, GuestofaGuest.com, even DailyFrontRow.com...and oh yes, Quest, Q, and a slew of Jason Binn projects.

Remember, the social stratosphere was once discreetly dealt with a certain Register, a column or two in small-circ publications like WWD...but these days, it's become almost mass. Tinsley Mortimer has (had?) her own show on the CW, in case you conveniently forgot. Books like Bergdorf Blondes sit atop New York Times bestseller lists. What was once elite by nature has become almost...plebian? No wonder Tonchi is looking elsewhere for page---and photo---fodder.
ASHLEY BAKER