The Cut, New York Magazine’s style and culture website with a loyal following, named Lindsay Peoples Wagner as its new editor-in-chief on Monday.
Ms. Peoples Wagner, 30, will rejoin the publication after serving two years as the top editor of Teen Vogue, where she was the youngest editor-in-chief of a Condé Nast magazine and one of the few black journalists to have directed either of the publications the company. She was previously the editor for the fashion market at The Cut, which started as a fashion blog on the New York Magazine website and became a standalone website in 2012.
The top job at The Cut opened in October when former editor-in-chief Stella Bugbee announced that she was stepping aside to become editor for New York Magazine. The magazine announced on Monday the appointment of Ms. Peoples Wagner as her successor.
Ms. Peoples Wagner described The Cut as a publication that “contains all the things you think about and talk about in group texts,” from spiritual matters to social issues.
“We are all diverse people, and we can enjoy fashion and want to have fun, but we also really care about the state of the world and where we are in politics,” said Ms. Peoples Wagner in an interview on Monday. “I think The Cut did a really good job of not boxing women.”
Ms. Bugbee, who ran the website from 2012 through last year, is credited with turning it into a digital powerhouse with a chatty elegant tone. A redesign in 2017 saw a shift in style and fashion to a broader perspective that encompassed political and gender issues.
“We tried to have a lot of fun,” said Ms. Bugbee. “That was one of our main goals at all times and it really affected the sensitivity.”
She said Ms. Peoples Wagner impressed her while she was the fashion editor at The Cut. “I think Lindsay is and was one of the most ambitious editors I’ve ever met,” said Ms. Bugbee, adding that her successor “had a real perspective that stood out from the crowd”.
One of Ms. Peoples Wagner’s last projects for The Cut, before joining Teen Vogue, was researching being black in the fashion industry, an article for which she interviewed more than 100 people of color. She said inclusivity was her top priority on her return to publication. (Ms. Peoples Wagner is also a co-founder of the Black in Fashion Council, which represents people with color in the industry.)
“Inclusivity – whether it’s race, ethnicity, sexuality, or background – I think it’s really important to hear different voices and different walks of life and learn how people can continue to be resilient in this crazy, harsh pandemic time in our world,” she said said.
David Haskell, editor-in-chief of New York Magazine, said Monday that Ms. Peoples Wagner had been a diversity and inclusion counselor and had set herself apart from other candidates in the “broad, big search” for The Cut’s next editor-in-chief. “It’s an incredibly exciting combination of continuity and change,” he said.
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