“Doing so made the magazine accessible to larger numbers of readers. But it also ceded what once had been very high ground.”

From an interesting look back, by Jacob Bernstein and Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times, at how Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines have changed in the Internet age:

On Feb. 28, when Glenda Bailey stands in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs of the Louvre, presiding over the opening of a new photography retrospective, “Harper’s Bazaar: First in Fashion,” it will mark her final act as editor of the storied magazine. Hearst, the publication’s owner, announced on Wednesday her move to become a “global consultant” after 19 years.

It will be a telling swan song. Not just because it will provide a showcase for the boundary-pushing photography that originally made the magazine famous. . . .But because, in the contrast between what will be on the wall and what is often on the page, it will underscore just how much Bazaar changed during Ms. Bailey’s tenure as she shepherded the magazine into the era of Instagram and reflected its ethos. Which is to say, the era of eroding authority of glossies, the rise of the armchair influencer and the commodification of creativity. . . .

Following the announcement, story after story mentioned her “whimsical” and surreal covers — Demi Moore atop a spiral staircase feeding a giraffe, photographed by Mark Seliger; Rihanna in the ocean, happily reclining in the mouth of a shark (Norman Jean Roy). But Ms. Bailey’s real skill — the reason she lasted so long — was being able to balance such high-minded homages to the magazine’s history with content that seemed, more and more, like an astutely art-directed catalog.

Doing so made the magazine accessible to larger numbers of readers. Dennis Freedman, the former creative director of W, noted in an interview that the pages were consistently shoppable. That arguably saved Bazaar from being crushed into nothing by the internet. But it also ceded what once had been very high ground”, and dispensed with the most romantic notions about what fashion magazines can be. . . .

The price of artistic aspiration — the drive to move the eye and mind and closet forward — is more often than not accompanied by a sacrifice in audience size. What is produced often seems too challenging, too weird. And audience is the pot of gold of the day. This is true for both fashion magazines and the industry they cover. . . .