In 2010, Emily Weiss was working on a Vogue photo shoot in Miami when she and Doutzen Kroes got to talking about self-tanner. Weiss was, at the time, an assistant to a freelance stylist. Kroes was among the highest-paid models in the world, and (it emerged) a big fan of L’Oréal Sublime Bronze ProPerfect Salon Airbrush Self-Tanning Mist. “She was like, ‘All the other ones are crazy,’” Weiss later recalled. This one, Kroes insisted, was different—she said it didn’t even smell. Weiss picked up a bottle at the drugstore and was converted. She pitched a Vogue beauty editor and wrote up the recommendation, in what became her first byline for the magazine.
The episode contained, in miniature, the forces Weiss would harness in her career. There was the fast, casual intimacy of talking about beauty products— the conversations about lip gloss or deodorant that could make a bar bathroom (or a photo-shoot trailer) feel like a slumber party. There was the value of personal recommendations, which held up even when the person doing the recommending was perhaps not unbiased. Kroes was a L’Oréal “Ambassador”; getting people to buy such products as Sublime Bronze ProPerfect Salon Airbrush Self-Tanning Mist was her job. But Weiss wasn’t put off. An apparently heartfelt recommendation could inspire not just a purchase but some pro-bono promotional work, too.
Denne historien er fra September 25, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra September 25, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
