Harper’s Bazaar, June 1972

A couple of weeks ago I posted a Vogue cover from 1971, so I thought I’d better give the competition a little boost as well.  In the late 60s and the 70s Vogue covers were, for the most part, head shots, but the covers at Bazaar were often action shots.  This cover from June, 1972 is a good example of a typical early 70s Bazaar cover, with the model leaping down a stretch of beach.

Until early 1972, the editor at Bazaar was Nancy White.  White was pretty much the opposite of Vogue‘s Diana Vreeland, and in the late 1950s both women were up for the editorship of Bazaar.  Vreeland had been working there some time as fashion editor, and the new-comer White had been most recently at Good Housekeeping.  But White had an advantage, as she was out-going editor Carmel Snow’s niece.  White got the job, Vreeland left Bazaar for Vogue, and the rest is history.

Interestingly, while Vreeland was replaced at Vogue for being too flamboyant, White was replaced at Bazaar a short time later for being too old-fashioned.  Her replacement was James Brady from Women’s Wear Daily, who quickly made the magazine more political in nature, with less emphasis on fashion.  He lasted fourteen months before he was fired.

Photographer: Hiro
Model:  Pam Suthern
Copyright:  Hearst Corporation