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 October 2013 cover highlightingEsquire's 80th anniversary | |
| Editor-in-Chief | Michael Sebastian[1] |
|---|---|
| Categories | Men's |
| Frequency | 6 issues a year (Winter; March; April/May; Summer; September; October/November) |
| Total circulation (Dec 2020) | 629,949[2] |
| First issue | October 1933; 92 years ago (1933-10) |
| Company | Hearst Communications |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0194-9535 |
| OCLC | 824603960 |
Esquire is an Americanmen's fashion magazine. Currently published in the United States byHearst, it also has more than 20 international editions.
Founded in 1933, it flourished during theGreat Depression andWorld War II under the guidance of foundersArnold Gingrich,David A. Smart, andHenry L. Jackson while during the 1960s it pioneered theNew Journalism movement. After a period of quick and drastic decline during the 1990s, the magazine revamped itself as a lifestyle-heavy publication under the direction ofDavid Granger.
Esquire was first issued in October 1933[3] as an offshoot of trade magazineApparel Arts (which later becameGentleman's Quarterly;Esquire andGQ would share ownership for almost 45 years). The magazine was first headquartered in Chicago and then, in New York City.[4] It was founded and edited byDavid A. Smart,Henry L. Jackson andArnold Gingrich.[5] Jackson died in aplane crash in 1948, while Gingrich led the magazine until his own death in 1976. Smart died in 1952, although he leftEsquire in 1936 to found a different magazine for the company,Coronet. The founders all had different focuses; Gingrich specialized in publishing, Smart led the business side of the magazine while Jackson led and edited the fashion section, which made up most of the magazine in its first fifteen years of publishing. Additionally, Jackson'sRepublican political viewpoints contrasted with theliberalDemocratic views of Smart, which allowed for the magazine to publish debates between the two.
Esquire initially was supposed to have a quarterly press run of a hundred thousand copies. It cost fifty cents per copy (equivalent to $12.15 today).[6] However, demand was so high that by its second issue (January 1934), it transformed itself into a more refinedperiodical with an emphasis on men's fashion and contributions byErnest Hemingway,F. Scott Fitzgerald,[7]Alberto Moravia,André Gide, andJulian Huxley.
In the 1940s, the popularity of thePetty Girls andVargas Girls,[8] particularly among the Armed Forces provided a circulation boost, but also proved controversial: in 1943, the DemocraticUnited States Postmaster GeneralFrank Comerford Walker brought charges against the magazine on behalf of the administration ofFranklin Delano Roosevelt,[9] which alleged thatEsquire had used theUS Postal Service to promote "lewd images". Republicans opposed the lawsuit and in 1946 theUnited States Supreme Court found inHannegan v. Esquire, Inc., 327 U.S. 146 (1946), thatEsquire's right to use the Postal Service was protected by theFirst Amendment of the United States Constitution.[10]
During the 1950s, Al Moore replaced Petty and Vargas as the main pinup illustrator forEsquire.[11] Petty illustrated for Esquire from 1933 to 1956,[12] Vargas was hired to replace Petty in 1940 and was active until 1946.[8]
Beginning with its second number, a blond, pop-eyed, mustachioed character named "Esky" (created by cartoonistsE. Simms Campbell andSam Berman), graced almost everyEsquire front page for over a quarter of a century, depicting the refined character of the magazine and its readership, mostly in the form of figurines, although a stylized design of his face would often appear as well (replacing the figurines in the 1950s), and beginning in 1962, this graphic would be featured as the dot on the "I" of the logo until this was changed in 1978. After then, the character would be occasionally revived, most notably during the 1980s and 1990s, a short-lived "Esky" award given to popular rock bands during the 2000s and during Jay Fielden's tenure in the 2010s.
UnderHarold Hayes, who ran it from 1961 to 1973,Esquire became as distinctive as its oversized pages,[13] helping pioneer the trend ofNew Journalism by publishing such writers asNorman Mailer,Tim O'Brien,John Sack,Gay Talese,Tom Wolfe, andTerry Southern. In the mid-1960s,Esquire partnered withVerve Records to release a series of "Sound Tour" vinyl LPs that provided advice and music for traveling abroad.[14] In August 1969,Esquire publishedNormand Poirier's piece, "An American Atrocity", one of the first reports of American atrocities committed against Vietnamese civilians.[15] Like many other magazines of the era,Esquire shrank from the traditional large-magazine format (about10+1⁄4 in × 13+3⁄8 in or 260 mm × 340 mm) to the smaller standardletter size (8+1⁄2 in × 11 in or 220 mm × 280 mm) in 1971.
The magazine was sold by the original owners toClay Felker in 1977 (although Esquire Inc. kept its name until its acquisition byGulf + Western in 1983). Felker reinvented the magazine as afortnightly in 1978, under the title ofEsquire Fortnightly, ditching the script logo that had been used (with minor tweaks) since 1933. However, the fortnightly experiment proved to be a failure, and by the end of that year, the magazine lostUS$5 million. Felker soldEsquire in 1979 to the 13-30 Corporation, a Tennessee-based publisher, which reverted the magazine into a monthly, beginning with the July issue (dated both as of July 3 and 19). During this time,New York Woman magazine was launched as something of a spin-off version ofEsquire aimed at a female audience. In 1986, the 13-30 Corporation (renamed as the Esquire Magazine Group) launched theNew York Woman magazine as something of a spin-off version ofEsquire aimed at a female audience. The company split up at the end of the year, andEsquire was sold toHearst, withNew York Woman going its separate way to American Express Publishing, being published until 1992.
The arrival of male-oriented lifestyle publications during the early 1990s and the problems of the magazine industry during the middle of the decade led to a sustained decline in circulation that threatened the future ofEsquire, which had relied upon an elegant, highly-literate audience (until the late 1970s, it published a "back-to-college" issue each September, and during the second half of the 1980s it published a year-end register featuring leading cultural figures under 40 years of age) but did not appeal to younger men.David M. Granger was namededitor-in-chief of the magazine in June 1997, fresh from a six-year stint atGQ, which he turned around from its fashion-heavy tradition.[16] After his arrival, the magazine received numerous awards, including multiple National Magazine Awards. Its award-winning staff writers includeTom Chiarella,Scott Raab,Mike Sager, Chris Jones, John H. Richardson,Cal Fussman,Lisa Taddeo, andTom Junod. Famous photographers have also worked for the magazine, among which fashion photographerGleb Derujinsky, andRichard Avedon. In spite of its success, the magazine under Granger became increasingly criticized for its focus on the so-called metrosexual culture (a criticism he previously had late in hisGQ tenure). David Granger stepped down in 2016, being replaced by Jay Fielden, who revamped the magazine into its more classical up-market style. At the same time, its political coverage became more comprehensive, following a trend among American magazine publications in general. After a series of shake-ups at Hearst's magazine division, Michael Sebastian became editor in mid-2019, reverting to its 2000s-era style.
In September 2006, the magazine launched a special style-focused issue entitledThe Big Black Book, which beginning in 2009 was published twice a year until the Spring/Summer issue ran for the last time in 2018.
In 2010, the June and July issues were merged as were the December and January issues in 2015, and in 2018 the magazine moved to eight issues per year.[17]
In January 2009,Esquire launched a new blog—theDaily 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."[18] The concept of the "Daily Endorsement Blog" was said to have emerged fromEsquire's November 2008 issue called the "Endorsement Issue", in which, after 75 years,Esquire publicly endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time.[19] TheDaily Endorsement Blog was officially discontinued in April 2011.
From 1969 to 1976,Gordon Lish served as fiction editor forEsquire and became known as "Captain Fiction" because of the authors whose careers he assisted. Lish helped establish the career of writerRaymond Carver by publishing his short stories inEsquire, often over the objections of Hayes.[20] Lish is noted for encouraging Carver'sminimalism and publishing the short stories ofRichard Ford. Using the influential publication as a vehicle to introduce new fiction by emerging authors, he promoted the work of such writers asT. Coraghessan Boyle,Barry Hannah,Cynthia Ozick,Reynolds Price andWilliam Harrison.
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 ofJ. D. Salinger, the reclusive author best known forThe 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."[21]
Other authors appearing inEsquire at that time includedWilliam F. Buckley,Truman Capote,Murray Kempton,Malcolm Muggeridge,Ron Rosenbaum,Andrew Vachss andGarry Wills.
During the mid-late 1980s, the magazine's June "Summer Reading" issues featured a full-length fiction story accompanied by shorter pieces, all written for the magazine.
Although the magazine greatly reduced its fiction content during the 1990s in line with most other magazines, it has nevertheless continued to publish fiction in occasion. WriterElizabeth Gilbert debuted inEsquire in 1993, whileChris Adrian,Nathan Englander,Benjamin Percy, andPatrick Somerville among others have also contributed to the magazine. Other writers who have recently appeared inEsquire includeRalph Lombreglia,James Lee Burke, andStephen King.[22]
In 2007,Esquire launched the Napkin Fiction Project, in which 250 cocktail napkins were mailed to writers all over the country by the incoming fiction editor, in a playful attempt to revive short fiction—"some with a half dozen books to their name, others just finishing their first".[23] In return, the magazine received nearly a hundred stories.Rick Moody,Jonathan Ames,Bret Anthony Johnston,Joshua Ferris,Yiyun Li,Aimee Bender, andZZ Packer are among the notable writers included.
For many years,Esquire has published its annualDubious Achievement Awards, lampooning events of the preceding year. As arunning gag, the annual article almost always displayed an old photo ofRichard Nixon laughing, with the caption, "Why is this man laughing?" However, the February 2006 "Dubious Achievement Awards" used the caption under a photo ofW. Mark Felt, the former FBI official revealed in 2005 to be "Deep Throat", the source forBob Woodward andCarl Bernstein to uncover theWatergate scandal. The magazine discontinued the Nixon photo in February 2007, referring to a poll stating thatGeorge W. Bush had surpassed Nixon as the "worst president ever".
A popular running gag featured in the "Dubious Achievements of 1990" edition involved especially egregious achievements headlined with "And then they went toElaine's.", referring to a popular restaurant in New York City that closed in May 2011.
Esquire did not publish "Dubious Achievement Awards" for 2001, but resumed them with the 2002 awards, published in the February 2003 issue.
"Dubious Achievement Awards" were discontinued in 2008, according to an editor's note in the January 2008 issue, considering that the overabundance of imitators had made the feature superfluous.[24] However, after a nine-year hiatus, the feature was revived in the January 2017 issue with a skewering of 2016 events.
The annualSexiest Woman Alive feature ran between 2003 and 2015, billed as a benchmark of female attractiveness and consisting of a photoshoot and profile of the winning woman. Originally, it was a part of the "Women We Love" issue that had appeared yearly since 1988 (after being a section of "The Passions of Men" issue, June 1987), being initially titled "Woman of the Year". To build interest, the magazine would do a tease, releasing partial images of the woman in the issues preceding the November issue. By 2007, it had become the dominating story of the issue and to create an element of surprise the hints were abandoned.
The feature was criticized for objectifying women. In aSlate article followingPenélope Cruz's 2014 Sexiest Woman Alive profile, Katy Waldman called the article the "latest icky entry in the icky genre" and describing it as using "rapt, creepy, overheated language to say practically nothing about his subject, except that she is 'impossibly beautiful,' 'has no physical flaws,' 'looks like a thousand different women,' and 'can be whatever we want her to be.' (So, nothing.)".[25] Waldman said the profiles "traffic in weirdo pious metaphors and exaggerations that aim to winkingly indicate how overcome a guy gets in the face of a gorgeous lady. But they just make men seem like drooling louts."[25]
| Year | Choice | Age |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Angelina Jolie[26] | 29 |
| 2005 | Jessica Biel[27] | 23 |
| 2006 | Scarlett Johansson[28] | 21 |
| 2007 | Charlize Theron[29][30] | 32 |
| 2008 | Halle Berry[31][32] | 42 |
| 2009 | Kate Beckinsale[33] | 36 |
| 2010 | Minka Kelly[34] | 30 |
| 2011 | Rihanna[35] | 23 |
| 2012 | Mila Kunis[36] | 29 |
| 2013 | Scarlett Johansson[37] | 28 |
| 2014 | Penélope Cruz[38] | 40 |
| 2015 | Emilia Clarke[39][40] | 27 |
Esquire operates 23 international editions:
(US)| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
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