Bal Harbour

Tali Minor: I wanted to begin with how your role has changed since being promoted from editorial director to president and editor in chief. Does that mean you're now engaged with both editorial and publishing concerns? Stella Bugbee: It does. As you are probably aware we are in a complicated publishing environment in the sense that the old rules and methods are still somewhat in place, but everything is changing in a very rapid way. The ground is sort of moving underneath our feet. My title change is sort of like an acknowledgement that a person in my position needs to play a role that is forward-thinking and business-oriented, but also editorial. TM: It's all about the brand. SB: Well, I think to be a successful media company, everyone is thinking about all aspects of the business, like growing editorially or growing in a business capacity. And I think it's also a sort of acknowledgement that a lot of people in our space already operate this way—whether they have the title or not. I wouldn't say that my job drastically changed, it certainly meant that externally it did, but internally I'm not doing things super differently than I was. TM: I noticed there was a flurry of Bugbee interviews around the relaunch of The Cut, which also coincided with your promotion. Was that part of your overall strategy? SB: We did a pretty big push with press around relaunch. That was necessary because it was a redesign. We didn't fundamentally alter our DNA, but we reorganized ourselves pretty drastically, so there was a bit of explaining that needed to happen. I worked pretty closely to re-architect the site in the sense of coming up with the four new categories: Style, Self, Culture and Power. And those words needed a little explanation. I think we really saw this as an opportunity to introduce the brand to some more people—or reintroduce the brand to people who thought they knew it. I did a huge push around that, which I think I would have done regardless of my new title. TM: How much of what we see is your vision? For instance, are the column ideas your own, or is it all collaborative? SB: It's really hard to say. I mean, any person running a project is just in charge of a big giant collaboration. I have really great team members, so I wouldn't say that like 50 percent of The Cut is me, me, me. It's really just a sensibility thing, a hiring thing. I'm a big part of it in terms of my sensibility. I make a lot of choices editorially and visually. TM: And you set the overall tone. SB: Yeah. My background as a visual person plays into things a lot. I think about things visually, as well as packaging ideas into stories and coming up with rubrics. It's a giant collaboration; my coworkers are really amazing creative people who are all the time coming up with their own creative contributions. TM: Some of the columns are just so spot on. There's an intimacy that you create with the content that feels as if it has evolved from the best conversations I ever had with my girlfriends. SB: Well, that's really good to hear because that's what we are going for. We do talk a lot about conversation and about what kind of conversations people are having. In a very modern way, we just try to mimic the sound of the time. TM: As a women's magazine, have you reflected on how the idea of feminism has changed over the last five years? SB: It's been a really amazing time to get to cover feminism and women's politics. I can't imagine a more interesting moment, honestly. We've had the first female presidential candidate run, so much sexual 76 BAL HARBOUR PHOTO COURTESY OF NEW YORK MAGAZINE IN STELLA WE TRUST Stella Bugbee is one of the great feminist voices of today. Here, The Cut's editor in chief speaks candidly about tone, teamwork and taking it too far. BY TALI MINOR PORTRAIT BY VICTORIA STEVENS

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