Vogue: Once and Forever | Astonish Me | 2

0:07A cold November day in 1933 on Long Island Sound. Fashion editor Carmel Snow stands on a deserted beach in her usual black hat and pearls. After 11 years at Vogue, she's done the unthinkable. Defected to Harper's Bazaar, there just wasn't enough room at the top. Carmel turns to the photographer next to her, who's unpacking his camera bag. This is the first time she's worked with him. So, what's the plan? The young photographer's wearing large round eyeglasses that give him an owlish look. He's a former photojournalist from Hungary, but Carmel's taken a big risk in hiring him. He doesn't speak English, and he's never taken a fashion photo in his life.

0:52He waves his arm from left to right down the beach and points at the model standing just on the water's edge. Then he stares expectantly at Carmel. Tell the lady! Carmel bites her lip in frustration and feels a hint of panic. Harper's Bazaar's December issue is ready to be sent to the printer, but the current cover of models posing in front of a painted backdrop is boring and static, like something that would appear in the more conservative Vogue. Carmel envisions a modern, action-packed look, like the shots the young Hungarian photographer took of children running into the sea. But if he can't nail the shoot today, she'll have disrupted the whole printing schedule and rung up quite a bill for nothing.

1:36The model waves her arms at them in confusion. She's an athletic socialite wearing a dark one-piece swimsuit with an attached short cape. Her lips are blue with cold. What do you want me to do? The photographer crouches down as if he were a sprinter at the start of a race. He takes off and runs a few yards at full speed, stops, turns, and points at the shivering model by the shoreline. He picks up his new Leica sports camera, raises it to his face, and twirls his free hand in circles like a propeller. Lady, go! The model catches on. She laughs and takes off sprinting down the beach. The cape catches the wind and billows out behind her, well-defined muscles ripple along her taut thighs.

2:23The photographer takes shot after shot, before the girl even stops to catch her breath. Carmel knows she's got a winner. When the December issue hits the newsstands, the photo of a barely clad woman joyfully running along the beach causes a sensation. Nothing like it has ever appeared in the buttoned-up, studio-bound photo spreads of the fashion journals. It becomes a defining image of the modern American girl. And with it, Harper's Bazaar ignites a daring new look for fashion mags, inspired by cutting-edge Bauhaus artists in Europe and Russia. The shift is made possible by new high-speed cameras using 35mm film like the Leica that usher in the age of action shots.

3:11Vogue resists the trend, but if it doesn't catch the action wave soon, Harper's Bazaar and its ruthless owner William Randolph Hearst will leave Vogue limp and lifeless in their high-speed dynamic wake.

3:34From Wondery, I'm David Brown and this is Business Wars.

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5:16Apply for AppleCard in the Wadded app to see your credit limit offer in minutes. Subject to credit approval, AppleCard issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. In the last episode, Cosmopolitan's top editor, Helen Gurley Brown, faced down waves of 70s-era activists protesting her outdated sexual politics. And a snazzy redesign at Harper's Bazaar shot the magazine back up the ranks to second place behind Vogue. Meanwhile, the magazine's latest editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, traded out elegance for youth and celebrity, squelching the successful new U.S.

5:56edition of Elle magazine. Once again, Vogue was in the catbird seat on the runway. Now, we're flashing back to the 1930s. In 1933, Hitler's Nazi Party rules Germany, and anti-Semitism and rumors of a second war in Europe are spreading rapidly. Soon, Paris will be forced to shut down its haute couture houses, and America will become the new source of high fashion, with photographers and journalists fleeing the unrest across the Atlantic. Both Vogue and Harper's Bazaar benefit from the influx of talent. Editor Carmel Snow is taking advantage of the fresh blood to usher in a new era of style and gloss to Harper's Bazaar's pages.

6:40It's the fiercest period of competition the two rivals have faced yet. This is Episode 2, Astonish Me.

6:57It's 1937 in New York City. Vogue editor Edna Chase drives a Ford sedan over the magnificent new Triborough Bridge on her way to work. She's 60 years old, white-haired and sensibly dressed in a black cotton shirt dress. She's worried about the tensions in Europe, and how she will fill the magazine if the world once again descends into war. Chase cranes her neck to marvel at the bridge's imposing steel towers, and the long sweep of the suspension cables. It reminds her of the photos she's seen of the newly opened Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and the Hoover Dam. She imagines these huge projects, and the impressive new parkways crisscrossing the country.

7:40They're uniquely American in their daring and scope. Why is she always touting European culture and taste when there are riches right in her backyard? A vague idea starts to form in her mind as she navigates the Midtown traffic. Chase arrives at the Vogue offices at 420 Lexington Avenue and barges into Conde Nast's office. Conde, I have an idea for a special issue. We should do one about America, about the beauty, industriousness, and homegrown fashions of our own country. Nast looks up from his desk covered with correspondence and accounting tables. He's 64 and gray around the temples. He's aged visibly since the stock market crash.

8:27Interesting, Edna. We've done special issues, but we've never focused on our own country. I think the angle would go over well with the advertising department. You know, nothing sells like patriotism in troubled times. Vogue's Americana issue debuts in February of the following year, featuring an introduction by novelist Tom Wolfe. It sells out in days at newsstands around the country. So much positive mail pours in that it becomes an annual feature. That year, Vogue's total circulation, including international editions, hits a new peak of more than 300 ,000, while Harper's Bazaar trails at just over 200.

9:10But Condé Nast takes no comfort from his success. He's been secretly suffering for more than a year from cancer, as well as a serious heart condition. Only his secretary knows about his failing health. During bad attacks, she gives him oxygen from a tank she hides behind a filing cabinet in his office. In the summer of 1942, Condé Nast dies of a heart attack. The night before his death, he names the manager of Paris Vogue as his successor as president. Vogue's incapable hands, but Carmel Snow at Harper's Bazaar is more than capable. She's unstoppable.

9:57It's a bitterly cold morning in December 1944 in eastern France. Carmel Snow rides in the passenger seat of a dilapidated Renault sedan. At the wheel, the young photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson steers them through the devastated countryside. They're not far from Belgium's western front, where U.S. forces battle the Nazis' brutal offensive at the Battle of the Bulge. Carmel is 57, wearing her usual pearls and black high heels, despite traveling through war-torn Europe. She's come to recently liberated Paris for an upcoming story on the Red Cross. Carmel points to some mottled mounds in a field.

10:37Henri, stop! What is that? Brisson pulls the car over. Shell craters pit the field. He and Carmel stumble across the hard ruts in the frozen earth. They stop in horror in front of a pile of bloated dead cows. The stench overwhelms them. Carmel takes a perfumed handkerchief out of her purse and holds it over her nose. Oh, how awful! They must have wandered onto landmines. Ressence seemed far worse during his time in the French underground, before he was captured by Germans and spent almost three years as a prisoner in a Nazi war camp. He stamps out a cigarette and raises his Leica camera to his face.

11:18It'll be a challenge showing images like these next to Dior gowns. Carmel takes a small pad and pencil out of her purse and jots down notes about the scene in the nearby bombed-out church with only two walls and a crumbling steeple remaining. On their drive, they pass countless silent villages devoid of life. Houses, stables, barns, blown to bits. This is why she made this dangerous trip. Americans have to see how badly Europe needs them. Resson's moving photos appear in the March 1945 issue of Harper's Bazaar, interspersed with shots from the new Paris collections. Somehow, Carmel and the art director manage to artfully weave in the fashion images to create a life-affirming photo essay encompassing both horror and beauty, despair, as well as joy.

12:14But new competition is on the horizon.

12:24It's fall 1946 in Lower Manhattan. Elena Gordon Lazareff crouches on the sidewalk next to a photographer in front of the famous triangular flatiron building on Fifth Avenue. She's 37 and tiny, with a blonde bob haircut and bright red lipstick. She gazes up at a model posing in a rib-hugging ocean blue jersey cardigan with broad padded shoulders and a full skirt. The model holds a squirming calico cat in her arms. Louise, stop slouching. And hold that cat tight so it can't move. Now, look to your left as if you're searching the crowds for your handsome lover. The photographer lies down on his back on the dirty concrete to capture more of the striking building's sharp angled facade looming over the model in her blue pillbox hat.

13:14Yes, just like that. Now, hold the cat up to you and kiss its nose. Oh, good. Great. Fantastic. Gordon Lazareff is a Russian Jew whose family emigrated to Paris. She fled the war to work as a journalist in New York for the New York Times, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. Her husband has just returned to Paris to run a major city newspaper, and he's raised money for her to start a new women's magazine, the first to feature color photos. She plans to name it Elle, after her first name as it's pronounced in French. Now, she's rushing to shoot as many cover shots as possible before she leaves the U.S., because the new expensive color film isn't available yet in Europe.

13:58Gordon Lazareff counts off the number of photos on her fingers as the photographer takes the shots. She glances down at the clipboard and taps the photographer lightly on the shoulder. That's enough. Remember, we're shooting 15 covers this week. I don't want to run out of this precious color film. 40 years from now, an American edition of her brainchild will hit the stands in the U.S. Elle's attitude, carefree, playful, and accessible, but also high fashion, will bring both Harper's Bazaar and Vogue to their stick-thin knees.

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17:13It's 1955 in New York's Fashion District. Designer Jeffrey Bean bends to look through a peephole that gives him a view of a showroom where a model's wearing one of his designs. Bean's only 27, and he's not allowed to appear in the room full of important magazine editors and garment trade professionals. He spots Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow and grabs the arm of the designer next to him in excitement. I can see Carmel Snow's blue hair. This could be my big break. But wait. It looks like she's asleep. Bean's fairly new to the company, but the designer is an old-timer. He grins. Don't worry, she's like a cat.

17:57She somehow sleeps with one eye open. Or maybe she just pretends to be asleep so the Vogue people can't see what she likes. What a freak. They say she survives on three martinis for lunch and B-12 vitamin shots. Bean keeps his eye glued to the peephole. What a character. But I still think I've bombed. I finally got something of mine in front of the only person in New York who matters, and I bored her into a coma. But Bean's colleague was right. Even with her eyes closed, Carmel can spot talent. She chooses one of Bean's designs, a simple belted jersey suit with a Peter Pan collar to open their all-important September issue.

18:42That single appearance in Bazaar launches Bean's career. Carmel Snow is now so powerful, she can make or break unknown designers like Bean and Cristobal Balenciaga, who she champions in this period and wears exclusively. But despite Snow's legendary status in the industry, her power within her own company is eroding. Printing and paper costs are rising due to an explosion in print media in the post-war period, and Hearst executives resort to wooing advertisers by ceding more power to them over the look of the magazine's covers and its content. Over the years, Snow had won Hearst's grudging respect.

19:29But since his death four years ago, she's had no ally in her fights with management over budgets and editorial decisions. In late 1957, they forced Carmel Snow into retirement. Hearst Management appoints her inexperienced niece as the new editor-in-chief. Despite the internal turmoil, Harper's Bazaar is closing in on Vogue's circulation of about 250 ,000. But without the magazine's longtime visionary leadership, Harper's Bazaar won't stay near the front of the pack for long.

20:13It's a cool spring morning in 1959 on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Newspaper magnate Samuel Newhouse tosses the New York Times onto his dining room table and heads to the door for his morning walk. He's 64 years old, an unassuming man just 5 foot 3 inches tall. He's risen from the Lower East Side tenements to this Park Avenue luxury duplex by buying up struggling newspapers and magazines at a premium, slashing budgets and content, and investing the profits into new acquisitions for his growing empire. It's earned him a reputation as the rag-picker media tycoon. Newhouse looks over his shoulder at his wife, Mitzi.

20:56She's still finishing a breakfast. Mitzi, I haven't forgotten our wedding anniversary, you know. Tomorrow's a biggie. Thirty-five years. What would you like? Mitzi Newhouse is even tinier than her husband. She has expensive taste, and Sam has always indulged her. He himself is so thrifty he doesn't have an office and works out of a battered briefcase. But he happily pays for her annual trips to buy new fashions in Paris and extravagant Louis XIV-style furnishings for their enormous townhouse and country estate. They joke that, after all these years together, she is the woman who has everything.

21:35Mitzi smiles and waves at her husband waiting by the door. Off you go! Don't even think about it. Just get me a fashion magazine. Ha ha, right. That would make a good story for you to tell the ladies-who-lunch crowd at Le Coup Basque.

21:52Newhouse walks briskly up Park Avenue, still mulling whether he should get his clothes-horse wife a new hat or necklace. But he soon turns to his more pressing concern. He is, in fact, in the process of buying some of his wife's favorite glossies. Vogue and Glamour, as part of the acquisition of Condé Nast publications. He knows firsthand how much buying power Mitzi has in their own household, and every day he sees secretaries and working women skipping into New York's elegant department stores and trudging out laden with shopping bags. He's convinced fashion is a moneymaker, and in fact, Vogue's strong circulation of$425 ,000 is a bright spot in the company's dismal balance sheet.

22:37Last year, the parent company reported a loss of$255 ,000 on$20 million in sales. Condé Nast is now low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking. But Newhouse's broker tells him that once management heard he was interested, they upped their asking price by a factor of 10, from$500 ,000 to$5 million. Newhouse pictures Mitzi swooping into Vogue's offices and renovating them like she does with her properties when she gets bored. It always puts her back in good spirit. When they met, she was a student at Parsons School of Design. She really does have a fashion background. And she always reads Vogue. Suddenly,$5 million seems like a good deal.

23:23And the anniversary present will make a great story for him to tell the media, too, when they find out he's the new owner of Condé Nast.

23:39It's February 1962 in Midtown Manhattan. Cy Newhouse Jr. sips scotch at a table in the barroom of the 21 Club. He's Sam's 35-year-old son, and his father has designated him Overseer of Vogue. He's painfully shy, with a hangdog look not unlike a Basset hound. Alex Lieberman, Vogue's dapper art director, sits across from him in the dark, wood-paneled room. Lieberman is a Soviet émigré and artist, tall, suave, and at 50, a generation older than Psy. With his silver hair and mustache, he looks like a debonair aristocrat. He's a mentor to the socially awkward young Newhouse, and takes him to New York's finest restaurants, art galleries, and high society soirees, something Psy's working-class absentee father never did.

24:31Lieberman wants to imprint his own vision of what Vogue should be on the impressionable new owner. It's fabulous here, Alex, but what is this big idea you said you wanted to talk about? Lieberman picks up his wine glass and gazes approvingly at the deep, garnet-colored cabernet. I'm concerned Vogue's losing ground to Harper's Bazaar. They're inching closer in circulation and ad revenue, but more importantly, their pages are more stylish than ours. Look, I don't mean to be rude, but our poor editor Jessica Daves wears a veiled hat and white gloves to work like some headmistress from the 1940s. She's hardly inspiring, and the magazine shows it.

25:11Newhouse grins. Yeah, I saw the memo she sent the other day. No to a skirt three inches above the knee. No to any photo spreads of people doing that dance the twist. I think Elvis would make her faint. So, uh, what's your plan? Lieberman takes a sip of wine and puts down his glass. I say we lured Diana Vreeland away from Harper's Bazaar. Newhouse leans back in his chair to think. He likes the idea of raiding bazaar's personnel like Honde Nast and Hearst did in the old days. But Diana Vreeland is known to be ungovernable, like a wild horse. She's famous for her long-running Why Don't You column, full of outlandishly extravagant suggestions for fashionable living like Why don't you rinse your blonde child's hair in dead champagne to keep it gold as they do in France?

26:02And why don't you have a furry elk hide trunk for the back of your car? He's not sure he can cope with her eccentricity. Isn't that risky? She's never been editor-in-chief before. And from what I hear, she hemorrhages money on photo shoots. And someone told me she once recommended designers give women's clothes pockets like men's trousers. Then they could do away with their handbags. Bazaar earns millions from handbag advertising alone. Come on, is that the kind of unhinged editor we want to deal with? At least Vreeland's always surprising and original. Dave's is as exciting as an old sock. Look, it's a new world.