W (magazine)

W is an American fashion magazine that features stories about style through the lens of culture, fashion, art, celebrity, and film. W was created in 1972 by James Brady, the publisher of the sister magazine Women's Wear Daily (WWD), originally as a biweekly newspaper spin-off from WWD. In 1993, W was launched as an oversized fashion magazine, issued monthly. In 2000, Conde Nast purchased W from the original owner, Fairchild Publications. The magazine was still presented in an oversized format – 10 inches wide and 13 inches tall. Sara Moonves was editor-in-chief when the final print issue was published in March 2020. W was relaunched as an online fashion magazine and now has returned to print. W had a reader base of nearly half a million, 469,000 of which are annual subscribers. Its origins stem from a biweekly newspaper that was spun off from Women's Wear Daily, W became an oversized monthly magazine published by Fairchild Fashion Media in 1993. When Fairchilds' owner – Capital Cities/ABC – merged with The Walt Disney Company in 1997, W was one of the publications the new company continued with. In 1999, Condé Nast bought W from the Walt Disney Company, as the centerpiece of a $650 million deal that also included WWD, Jane and a number of other retail trade titles. Often the subject of controversy, W subsequently featured stories and covers which provoked mixed responses from its intended audience; most of Ws most memorable covers are featured on the W Classics page of the magazine's website. In July 2005, W produced a 60-page Steven Klein portfolio of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt entitled "Domestic Bliss". The shoot was based upon Pitt's idea of the irony of the perfect American family; set in 1963, the photographs mirror the era when 1960s disillusionment was boiling under the facade of pristine 1950s suburbia. Other controversial cover shoots include Steven Meisel's entitled "Asexual Revolution", in which male and female models (including Jessica Stam and Karen Elson) are depicted in gender-bending styles and provocative poses.