The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine (23 page)

That was until I got stuck in the middle of the Plaka by myself at 2 a.m., because my budget didn’t stretch to a hired car.

W
e continued the tradition we started with Karl Lagerfeld’s guest editorship of the December 2003 issue and kept exploring subjects we could feature for special editions. Crown Princess Mary featured on the December 2004 cover, and in 2005 we celebrated the success of Australian model Gemma Ward with a guest-edited issue. Come late 2006, my next guest editor wish was Kylie Minogue.

Kylie had been dealing with breast cancer and was just coming out the other side. Once the news was made public that she was in recovery, I made contact with her management about a possible collaboration. The answer at first was no, and I accepted that it may have been too soon to ask, but shortly afterwards I received an email advising me that they would like to go ahead with the project.

This was another interview that I was very keen to conduct myself. I had enormous admiration for the way she had managed her illness and even more so for the fact that she was prepared to talk to
Vogue
at this stage. I wasn’t sure how well she was, and how much she could contribute, but I decided we could work around it, and what she was unable to deliver we would.

Our interview took place at Blakes Hotel in Kensington, London. I checked in the night before and awoke to the sound of creaking floorboards and the shuffling of feet in the early hours of the morning, as if a ghost was pottering around the room. The following day I had an appointment with Jacqui, aka Lady Lilac, a renowned psychic who had been recommended to me by a friend. It’s a hobby of mine, harmless I hope. I’m counting on my friends to pull me aside if I start to get obsessive. (Mind you, I did find myself with my good friend Shemi visiting a toothless Bosnian gypsy in a field in Montenegro not so long ago, while mangy chickens ran around our feet, so maybe it’s already too late.)

As Jacqui walked into my suite the telephone rang, but when I picked it up there was no one on the line. She glanced around and said: “Someone was in here last night.” She then sat down, pulled out the tarot cards and before she even shuffled said: “You’re going to write a book, about yourself.”

I replied: “No, I have no intention of writing a book about myself.”

I must send her a copy.

That afternoon I met with Kylie in the restaurant downstairs at Blakes, which is dark, cozy and dimly lit—very much like a chic opium den. I arrived at the appointed time, suddenly and unannounced, to find her curled up on a banquette speaking quietly to then boyfriend Olivier Martinez. I apologized for interrupting what looked to be a very private conversation, but they were both very courteous and Olivier made a quick exit. We ordered tea, and I broke the ice by handing Kylie two gifts, one a pearl bracelet from Paspaley, and the other a handbag from Anya Hindmarsh.

I have to admit I was floored by how genuinely excited and grateful she was. I have seen a spoiled brat American actress literally throw a ring she had just been gifted on the floor of her hotel room. Kylie
explained that this sort of largesse did not exist when she first started out and it reminded me just how long and how hard she has worked at her career. She was honest, thoughtful and professional during the interview and it remains one of my favorites. That a major star like Kylie—who was quite frankly a perfect stranger—would share such intimate details of her personal life with me was rather humbling.

One stipulation of our deal was that she would be photographed by her friend and stylist William Baker, a condition that, if we did not agree to it, was a deal breaker. Kylie’s great friends Dolce & Gabbana provided the fashion from the current collection which Naomi Smith styled in a studio in London, and although Baker worked diligently, he was inexperienced and it showed in the photographs. Kylie still seemed frail, and his lighting hardened her, which was a shame. However, she was a trooper in every respect and did a beautiful personal photo diary for the magazine, featuring, without us asking, the bracelet and the bag. She is a superstar, inside and out.

Australian actresses have always been essential to
Vogue
and rarely have we experienced attitude. Quite the opposite. Rose Byrne has graced the cover many times, but I recall one time when she came from London to meet Naomi and I at our not particularly posh hotel in Paris. With no first-class airfare demands, she had paid for her own Eurostar ticket and checked in with no fanfare. I telephoned her room and asked if she would like to join us for dinner, as I had reserved a table at Hôtel Costes. “Oh, I’d love to,” she said. On the way in a taxi, she asked me if I wouldn’t mind stopping at an automatic teller machine. “Do you need cash?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied. “So I can pay for my dinner.”

Another one of our favorites was the drop-dead gorgeous Melissa George, who Richard Bailey captured in a beautiful shoot at Napoleon’s private home in the Hollywood hills. She is so generous she would quite
literally give you the clothes off her back. Once we were dining and she had just stepped off a plane from Los Angeles, looking like a genuine old-school movie star in head-to-toe Calvin Klein. I commented on how much I liked her cat-eye Oliver Peoples sunglasses and she said, “Here, have them,” and insisted I keep them. She tried to do the same thing on another instance with a Calvin Klein evening bag, but I fought her off. She has become a good friend, but I’ve stopped complimenting her on things in case she tries to give them to me.

By the end of 2006, rumors started to circulate that the FPC magazine group was up for sale, and that Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited was the main contender to buy it. Early one morning, a panicky message from management was sent around the building to say that Rupert himself was coming in, and telling us to start cleaning up. I privately questioned the rationale behind rushing to tidy the art department. I was pretty sure Rupert was used to the normal creative jumble of a working magazine office.

I was at my desk chatting with Tory Collison when a group of agitated suits burst through the door, circling Rupert. The only unflustered one was News Limited CEO John Hartigan, whom I’d never met. I was introduced to Rupert, and after we exchanged pleasantries I walked them all down to the fashion area, for the lack of anything more productive to do. Rupert was extremely relaxed, while the hovering FPC executives appeared to be on the brink of nervous collapse. There was a slightly awkward silence until John Hartigan stepped in, looked squarely at me and said, “You know, Condé Nast hold you in very high regard indeed, Kirstie,” in earshot of all. It probably wasn’t true, but it was a lovely thing to say. He’s a class act.

The News Limited deal was sealed in 2007 and for a short while we were unsure of who our new boss would be. I eventually learned that Michael McHugh was on his way out, and later it was announced he was being replaced by Tony Kendall, director of sales at News Limited.

Tony was, put simply, a nice guy: smart, fun and open to listening to what Grant and I had to say about our side of the business. In addition, he believed in print. The new chief operating officer was Sandra Hook, who had previously been the group publishing director at FPC and was also honest, intelligent and tactical. The future seemed very promising, given the combined clout of News Limited and the power of the
Vogue
brand.

Shortly after Tony started, the Condé Nast International conference rolled around, again in Venice. Nancy, Tony and I attended and he blended in easily, even volunteering to present one of the workshops—a task I would have dived into the murky depths of the canals to avoid. During the conference, Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Condé Nast International, came over to me and remarked, “I like your new CEO. He’s really Australian, but in a good way.” That compliment is the highest praise an Australian will ever hope to get from Condé Nast, so well done to Tony Kendall.

News Limited were equally as inclusive of me (at the beginning), and I was later invited to join an executive conference in Canberra, being one of only a handful of women in the room. I thoroughly enjoyed those conferences, as it was real inner workings of the newspaper, corridors of power stuff that I found to be quite exhilarating. Their world was new to me, as I had never experienced such a male-dominated organization. I could not help but feel the elitist nature of
Vogue
was at odds somewhat with News Limited’s unashamedly anti-elitist philosophy. I overdressed just for the hell of it.

At one point in the conference I was invited to a dinner. Only the major newspaper editors from around the country, some top management, me and Karen McCartney from
Inside Out
magazine, were on the guest list. I had apparently neglected to read the cc line of the email, because when I arrived at the bar Karen relayed to me that Rupert Murdoch would also be attending. Thus I found myself in the private dining room with a dozen or so top News Limited executives, seated next to John Hartigan and directly opposite Rupert. This was a thrilling, hair-at-the-back-of-your-neck-standing-up experience for me. For once in my life I was quiet as I observed how everyone behaved around the “boss,” as John called him. The men managed to be blokey and deferential at the same time.

Rupert was loquacious and engaging, and held the floor for most of the night, but it quickly became clear no one was ever really going to challenge him on anything, opinion or fact, whether he was talking about Hillary Clinton or the Taliban. The fire alarm went off at one point, but it didn’t deter Rupert from his monologue. I will always appreciate that Tony Kendall and John Hartigan included me at that dinner, as it was a rare glimpse into another, very fascinating media world.

Tony left
Vogue
and returned to News Limited a year or so later to be replaced as CEO at News Magazines by Sandra Hook. Over the next four years there would be a constant shifting of staff, especially of the old guard at
Vogue
. My beloved Grant Pearce moved to Hong Kong to work for Condé Nast Asia Pacific, the syndication office was shut down which meant the departure of editorial business manager Georgette Johnson, and Nancy also left the office to concentrate solely on
Vogue
in Asia. I was left to deal with a myriad of new and old News Limited staffers and consultants who, one after the other, offered me their unsubstantiated advice on how to run
Vogue
. Everyone had an
opinion, on everything, from which font we should use to how features should never contain a whole page of copy only. God forbid the
Vogue
reader be faced with lots of words. I had an advertising sales manager tell me with a completely straight face that she didn’t think the consumer would notice if we chopped sixteen pages of editorial out of each issue. Even if it was a 100-page edition.

During this time I was invited to have lunch with the principal designer for the high-end Barbie collector doll series, Robert Best, who was in Sydney from the United States and planning some upcoming Australian launches for Barbie. I arrived at the restaurant straight from a portrait shoot of myself, and I was very dressed up, in a sort of fifties, B-grade actress mode, with false eyelashes, backcombed hair and a leopard-print chiffon shirt—high camp when I think about it. Robert and I got on like a house on fire. No one else could get a word in. I went into a reverie about what sort of Barbie I would like to see, a Tennessee Williams collection of aging, broken Barbies based on
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
(she would come with house keys to be thrown down to dangerous strangers from her balcony), or a “Blanche DuBois Barbie,” with silk shawls to toss over light bulbs. We discussed the possibility of “the mother from
The Bad Seed
Barbie,” with a murderous little Rhoda included in the same pack. We had the most hysterical lunch, and I left buoyed by the thought that Barbie was in safe hands with someone as clever and post-modern ironic as Robert.

Some months later, I was at a party at Tracy Baker’s, who was in charge of press and marketing for Robert’s Australian events. Robert was back in Sydney and the guest of honor of the night. During the evening Robert came to me and said, “I would like to present you with something as a token of our new friendship,” and passed me a black
gift box. I lifted the lid and found the most beautiful illustration of me, portrayed as a Barbie, highly stylized and flattering, and dedicated to “a living doll . . .” I thought that was it, and was so touched. Robert then said: “No, no, look under the tissue.”

There was a doll. A Kirstie Clements Barbie. She had far thicker hair and a much smaller waist than me but she was wearing the same leopard-print and black outfit that I had been wearing at our initial lunch and she had my eye makeup. I really did not know what to think or feel. Me, a Barbie? As it turns out, I am the only Australian ever to be a Barbie. She even came with my own set of Chanel-style clothes and accessories, as well as a divine crocodile handbag. And now, apparently, she’s a collector’s item.