Esquire is a men's magazine by the Hearst Corporation with a strong literary tradition. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.[2]
History
Esquire appeared, for the first time, in October 1933. It was conceived at the darkest moment of the depression and was born at the dawn of the New Deal. The magazine began as a racy publication for men, published by David A. Smart and Arnold Gingrich.[2][3] It later transformed itself into a more refined periodical with an emphasis on men's fashion and contributions by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the 1940s, the popularity of the Petty Girls and Vargas Girls provided a circulation boost. In the 1960s, Esquire helped pioneer the trend of New Journalism by publishing such writers as Norman Mailer, Tim O'Brien, John Sack, Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe. Under Harold Hayes, who ran it from 1961 to 1973, it became as distinctive as its oversized pages. The magazine shrank to the conventional 8½x11 in 1971. The magazine was sold by the original owners to Clay Felker in 1977, who sold it to the 13-30 Corporation, a Tennessee publisher, two years later. 13-30 split up in 1986, and Esquire was sold to Hearst at the end of the year.
David Granger was named editor-in-chief of the magazine in June of 1997. Since his arrival, the magazine has received numerous awards, including multiple National Magazine Awards—the industry’s highest honor. Prior to becoming editor-in-chief at Esquire, Granger was the executive editor at GQ for nearly six years.
In October 2008, to commemorate the magazine’s 75th Anniversary, Esquire published a limited edition digital cover that featured electronic ink with moving words and flashing images. A video of it can be found here: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/video/e-ink-cover-video. The electronic cover was used in only 100,000 copies that went to newsstands — its overall circulation is about 720,000. Esquire has exclusive use of E Ink’s technology for use in print through 2009.
The February 2009 issue cover contains a lift-the-flap advertisement in the middle of Barack Obama's face. The flap contains quotes from the issue and an ad for the Discovery Channel show One Way Out.[4]
Design
Esquire magazine has been a canvas for many artists and illustrators like Abner Dean, Santiago Martinez Delgado, George Petty, TY Mahon and John Groth among others. Art directors have included Jean-Paul Goude, Paul Rand, Roger Black and Samuel Antupit; also during the 1960s using the techniques of print advertising, legendary adman George Lois, the youngest inductee into the Art Directors Hall of Fame, designed clever, eye-catching Esquire covers, such as Sonny Liston as Santa Claus and Andy Warhol drowning in a can of soup to illustrate an article on the death of the avant-garde. Lois' covers raised Esquire's circulation in ten years from 500,000 to two million.
On the third floor of the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan rests a tribute to Esquire’s glory years — a collection of 92 covers from the 1960s and early 1970s that have become, in the museum’s words, “essential to the iconography of American culture.”[5].
Today, Esquire is recognizable by its “wall of type covers"—which have inspired similar design in such magazines as New York, Maxim, and the Atlantic. The magazine has also continued its leading role in cutting edge design with its recent electronic ink (October 2008) and lift-the-flap (February 2009) covers.
Esquire on the Web
The Daily Endorsement Blog
In January 2009 Esquire launched a new blog—the Daily Endorsement Blog. Each morning the editors of the magazine recommend one thing for readers’ immediate enjoyment: “not a political candidate or position or party, but a breakthrough idea or product or Web site.”[6] The concept for this blog probably emerged from the November 2008 “Endorsement Issue,” in which, after 75 years, Esquire publicly endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time[7].
Fashion
The Big Black Book
The Big Black Book is a style manual for men created by the editors of Esquire. It’s meant to be an entertaining guide to understanding the facets of modern fashion and social behavior. Beginning in 2009, the big Black Book will be issued twice a year, in both the spring and fall.
Best Dressed Real Man
Esquire hosts a yearly contest, the Best Dressed Real Man contest, for men who believe they have “elegance, style, panache, sophistication and taste.”[8] 25 semi-finalists are displayed on esquire.com and on-line users may vote for their fan favorite. The 2008 winner was Kenyatte Nelson[9].
Fiction
From 1969 to 1976, Gordon Lish served as fiction editor for Esquire and became known as "Captain Fiction" because of the authors whose careers he assisted. Lish helped establish the career of writer Raymond Carver by publishing his short stories in Esquire, often over the objections of Hayes. Lish is noted for encouraging Carver's minimalism and publishing the short stories of Richard Ford. Using the influential publication as a vehicle to introduce new fiction by emerging authors, he promoted the work of such writers as T. Coraghessan Boyle, Barry Hannah, Cynthia Ozick and Reynolds Price.
In February 1977, Esquire published "For Rupert - with no promises" as an unsigned work of fiction: this was the first time it had published a work without identifying the author. Readers speculated that it was the work of J. D. Salinger, the reclusive author best known for The Catcher in the Rye. Told in first-person, the story features events and Glass family names from the story "For Esmé with Love and Squalor". Gordon Lish is quoted as saying, "I tried to borrow Salinger's voice and the psychological circumstances of his life, as I imagine them to be now. And I tried to use those things to elaborate on certain circumstances and events in his fiction to deepen them and add complexity." [10]
Other authors appearing in Esquire at that time included William F. Buckley, Truman Capote, Murray Kempton, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ron Rosenbaum, Andrew Vachss and Garry Wills.
The magazine's policy of nurturing young writing talent has continued with Elizabeth Gilbert, who debuted in Esquire in 1993, and more recently, with the work of such writers as Chris Adrian, Nathan Englander, Benjamin Percy, and Patrick Somerville. Other writers who have recently appeared in the magazine and on Esquire.com include Ralph Lombreglia, James Lee Burke, and Stephen King.[11]
The Napkin Fiction Project
In 2007 Esquire launched the Napkin Fiction Project, in which 250 cocktail napkins were mailed to writers all over the country—"some with a half dozen books to their name, others just finishing their first."[12] In return, the magazine received nearly a hundred stories, most of which can be viewed at http://www.esquire.com/fiction/napkin-project/#napkinlist. Rick Moody, Jonathan Ames, Bret Anthony Johnston, Joshua Ferris, Yiyun Li, Peter Ho Davies, Aimee Bender, and ZZ Packer are among the writers included.
Dubious Achievement Awards
For many years, Esquire has published its annual Dubious Achievement Awards, lampooning events of the preceding year. As a running gag, the annual article almost always displayed an old photo of Richard Nixon laughing, with the caption, "Why is this man laughing?" However, the February 2006 "Dubious Achievement Awards" used the caption under a photo of W. Mark Felt, the former FBI official revealed in 2005 to be the "Deep Throat" Watergate source for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The magazine did continue the Nixon photo in February 2007, referring to a poll stating that George W. Bush had surpassed Nixon as the "worst president ever". Another running gag has been headlining one especially egregious achievement, "And then they went to Elaine's." (Elaine's is a popular restaurant in New York City.)
Esquire did not publish "Dubious Achievement Awards" for 2001 or 2002, but resumed them with the 2003 awards, published in the February 2004 issue.
Sexiest Woman Alive
The annual feature Sexiest Woman Alive designation by the magazine is billed as a benchmark of female attractiveness.
Originally, it was a part of the "Women We Love" issue that was release in November. To build interest, the magazine would do a tease, releasing images of the woman's body parts in the issues preceding the November issue.
Recent honors[16]
- Winner, 2007 National Magazine Award for Reporting
- Winner, 2006 National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and Profile Writing
- Three National Magazine Award nominations in 2005
- Four National Magazine Awards in 2004
- Three National Magazine Award nominations in 2003
- Three National Magazine Award Nominations in 2002
- Winner, 2001 National Magazine Award for Reporting
- Eight National Magazine Award nominations in 2001
- Winner, 2000 National Magazine Award for Reviews & Criticism
- Five National Magazine Award nominations in 2000
- Three National Magazine Award nominations in 1999
Current editors
- David Granger - Editor in Chief (U.S.A)
- Peter Griffin - Deputy Editor
- Helene F. Rubinstein - Editorial Director
- David Curcurito - Design Director
- Lisa Hintelmann - Editorial Projects Director
- Mark Warren - Executive Editor
- Nick Sullivan - Fashion Director
- John Kenney - Managing Editor
- Ryan D'Agostino, Ross McCammon - Articles Editors
- Tyler Cabot, Richard Dorment - Features Editors
- Peter Martin - Associate Editor
- Tim Heffernan - Assistant Editor
- A. J. Jacobs - Editor at Large
- Eric Gillin - Online Editor
Current writers
- Tom Chiarella, Cal Fussman, Chris Jones, Tom Junod, Scott Raab, John H. Richardson, Mike Sager, Alexander, Count von Schönburg-Glauchau - Writers at Large
- AJ Jacobs, Ted Allen, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Andrew Chaikivsky, Stacey Grenrock Woods, Chuck Klosterman, Ken Kurson, Robert Kurson, Andy Langer, Rob Millan, Brian Mockehnhaupt, Charles P. Pierce, Daniel Voll, Barry Sonnenfeld - Contributing Editors
Listen to
International editions
References
- ^ [1]
- ^ a b "Arnold Gingrich, 72, Dead; Was a Founder of Esquire". New York Times. July 10, 1976, Saturday. "Arnold Gingrich, one of the founders of Esquire magazine in 1933 and its principal guiding light in most of the years since then, died of cancer yesterday at his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Mr. Gingrich, who was given the title of founding editor earlier this year, was 72 years old."
- ^ "Alfred Smart, Head Of Esquire Magazine.". New York Times. February 5, 1951, Monday.
- ^ ‘Open Here’ to Peek at Esquire’s Articles and Ad
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/business/media/21esquire.html?_r=1
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/blogs/endorsement/
- ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-granger/why-after-75-years-emesqu_b_133415.html?page=8
- ^ http://www.esquirebdrm.com/
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/style/best-dressed-real-men-0908?click=main_sr
- ^ The Wall Street Journal (February 25, 1977).
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/fiction/
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/fiction/napkin-project/
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/women/sexiest-woman-alive-2005/ESQ0207SEXIEST
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/scarlett-johansson-pics?click=main_sr
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/charlize-theron-gallery-1007?click=main_sr
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/what-is-esquire
See also
External links
