Carine Roitfeld Is Headed to Harper's Bazaar

Well, this is interesting: Carine Roitfeld, who was deposed as editor of Vogue Paris in late 2010, has taken a position at Harper’s Bazaar. Roitfeld, who just published the first issue of her new project CR Fashion Book, will be the Vogue competitor’s “global fashion director.”

Roitfeld will apparently be working closely with Stephen Gan, the creative director of American Harper’s Bazaar. This makes sense not only because Roitfeld and Gan are close friends, but because Gan is also Roitfeld’s business partner on CR Fashion Book. Gan is the head of Fashion Media Group LLC, which publishes CR Fashion Book, V, Visionaire, and VMan.

At the time of Roitfeld’s departure from Vogue Paris, where she had been editor-in-chief for a decade, the rumor was that she was fired after big advertisers (including the luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) were aghast at the content of the last issue she edited, the “Age” issue, which included the infamous spread featuring child models dressed up in women’s clothing. Roitfeld has always publicly claimed she resigned. Her relationship with Condé Nast, which publishes Vogue, and with her former deputy and best friend (now successor) Emmanuelle Alt has been very frosty; in interviews Roitfeld has called Condé Nast “a golden cage.” The Times even speculated that Condé Nast timed its recent announcement of its intention to found a French edition of Vanity Fair to steal Roitfeld’s thunder at the time of CR Fashion Book‘s launch. Whether or not it was Roitfeld’s top goal in signing with Harper’s Bazaar, which is published by Hearst, it’s a career move that is bound to stick in Condé’s craw. Get it, gurl.