Well, one thing is certain: this is no longer the Maxim of your adolescence.
Wednesday, the magazine best known for its Hot 100 — a shameless annual list of the women it deems the world's sexiest — debuted its first cover solely featuring a male model, actor Idris Elba (the magazine previously featured Tony Parker inside a flip cover). Cloaked in a black and gray leopard print overcoat that called back to his titular character on “Luther,” Elba introduced Maxim's September issue.
Throughout the world of women's fashion, September isn't just any month; it's the month. It's the crucial issue that's bulging with advertisements and editorials pointing readers toward the looks that will soon become the latest hot trends. As covers go, it's the most important one, and thanks to “The September Issue” documentary, we're all a little more cognizant of its significance and the work that goes into producing such a book. Given the background of its newest editor in chief, Kate Lanphear, it should come as little surprise that Maxim chose its September issue to make a big, fashion-driven splash, or that it picked Elba — who, in the world of men's magazines is about as quintessential a man's man as they come — to announce it. Before departing T, the New York Times Style magazine, for Maxim, Lanphear turned in stints at Vogue, Harper's Bazaar Australia and Elle; she is well-versed in the September Scramble.
“This is Maxim's first fashion issue and my first September issue as editor-in-chief,” Lanphear said in an email to the Post. “It's a tremendous moment for the brand and one we wanted to bring to life. It wasn't necessary to have a man on our first fashion issue, but we couldn't think of a style icon who better represented Maxim. It was a natural fit for the brand.”
Iranian-born investor Sardar Biglari, 37, bought the magazine in an auction last year for a reported $12 million, intending to overhaul it to make it more upscale — more like Details, Esquire or GQ and less like Lui. Biglari found the executor of that vision in Lanphear.
Her mission to differentiate Maxim from the pack of men's magazines with which it's now aiming to compete is simple: smart, interesting, newsworthy pieces such as a recent story on Matthew VanDyke, a former Baltimore prep schooler now turned American freelance militant who is now training Iraqi Christians to fight against ISIS.
After taking over in February, Lanphear's influence was immediately detectable in the art direction of Maxim's covers. She appears to have taken the lad mag in a direction where masculinity is less defined by ogling a monthly parade of scantily clad models and starlets in suggestive poses and more by an interest in style and luxury, and brands that reflect those interests such as Armani, Versace, and Prada.
Rather than accosting readers with its unblinking male gaze, the magazine has used cover photos that are closely cropped and trained on the models' faces. The May cover, which featured Charli XCX, boasted a dark, broody and almost noir-like quality. Charli wore a simple fitted black dress with a sweetheart neckline that exposed a generous bit of decolletage. The image was rotated so that the English singer/songwriter was upside down.
“Our goal wasn't to create a book that you would flip through, but one that you would sit down and read cover to cover,” Lanphear said.
The June/July cover, the magazine's noted “Hot 100” issue, featured a covered-up, bare-faced Taylor Swift with wet hair. Compared to “Hot 100” covers of old, she might as well have been wearing a wimple and veil, and not one of the naughty nun Halloween variety, either. Even more stunning was that Swift, whose trademark is her decided lack of overt sexuality and wholehearted embrace of romanticism, topped the list. The interview read like something that could have just as easily appeared in the pages of Cosmopolitan. She even talked about embracing feminism.
One wonders if Maxim's mainstay readers, accustomed to playing the role of straight-guy voyeur, mounted a bit of a backlash. After four months of Lanphear's new world order, the August cover reverted to Maxim's bread-and-butter fare. On it, model Emily Didonato is pictured topless, in a three-quarter turn with her back to the photographer. She looks coquettishly over her shoulder. Her hands are covering her breasts, she's sprinkled with sand, and ample rump cleavage springs from her black boyshort bottoms. To call it cliché would be akin to calling the Batmobile a sports car. Technically accurate, yes, but massively understated.
“From the on-set we never wanted to shy away from sexy,” Lanphear said. “For August, we wanted to capture a sense of escapism for our “Gone” issue. The cover, shot by fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, was an image I personally loved.”
But with the September cover, Lanphear appears to almost be issuing a pointed directive to the pouty masses wondering where all the T&A went: “MAN UP” orders the cover line flanking Elba's straight-ahead, 1000-yard stare.
Maxim hasn't ditched its old approach altogether; there's still an item on the magazine's homepage entitled “7 Beautiful Women in Crop Tops,” and another further down detailing “15 Beautiful Women, As Chosen by the Drummer for Talking Heads.” Still, it's plowing ahead into a new, less sophomoric era. Who better to lead its flock than the man the zeitgeist has overwhelmingly deemed fitting to next play James Bond: Idris Elba? In Lanphear's short tenure as editor in chief, the changes have been well-received. According to an online Maxim poll, 70 percent of readers say they like the magazine's new look.
Does this point to more men gracing Maxim's future covers? Said Lanphear: “You'll have to wait and see!”
Washington Post-Bloomberg