Magazines' celebrity profiles take exposure to another level

LOS ANGELES - On the cover of the current GQ, a beaming Drake strides confidently toward the reader, fit and fearless in a $3,100 Gucci suit and $1,590 Tom Ford shoes. Inside, the 25-year-old rapper greets the magazine's reporter poolside at his "lady-fantasy" (her words) compound in the San Fernando Valley.

Writer Claire Hoffman gets Drake to reveal cover-worthy morsels about his womanizing (prodigious, now purportedly regretted), his fragile paternal ties and his Internet-fueled entree into the music world. After wine spritzers, dinner and a look at the projection system above his bed, the story ends with the young star asking the journalist: "Are you or are you not sleeping with me?"

The proposition may have been hypothetical, as Hoffman wrote, but it lent a telling zing about Drake's ample feeling of oats. The 1,500-word magazine piece, in fact, gave the star and his interlocutor something of what they both wanted. Drake got the chance to be confirmed as a lord of the pop culture moment, if stumbling a bit on his own swag and swagger. Hoffman got to demonstrate her skill at getting famous people talking and misstepping - as she previously did, more dramatically, with profiles of the boorish "Girls Gone Wild" kingpin Joe Francis coaxing underage girls into his videos, and of the ill-starred singer Amy Winehouse, smoking crack and flirting with the abyss in her London flat.

"Drake Is Living the High Life" represents one of the latest iterations of an apparently unsinkable, occasionally intriguing, media vehicle. The celebrity magazine profile - especially the ones suggesting an intimate view inside a hidden world - survives even as many luminaries seize control of their own stories via blogs and social media, even as uber-controlling publicists parse out less and less time with the stars.

"Whether it's a private meeting, or something like a date, many readers fantasize about going out with a big celebrity. These journalists are still their surrogates," said Meryl Gordon, director of the magazine writing program at NYU. "I don't have trouble with the conceit, as long as you don't take it too far."

Gordon thinks Hoffman's Drake profile got it about right. "She does it with a wink and a nod," Gordon said. "In the end, it just made me smile."

The magazine industry, which has struggled for years with declining newsstand sales, leans heavily on the allure of celebrities. And men's magazines have used the conceit of date-as-interview for at least 30 years, cranking up the lust-meter with each ensuing year. But by many accounts, the stars have gotten more parsimonious about access. And the challenge for writers and editors never wanes: presenting hyper-public figures in a fresh way.

"It's not brain-surgery hard, but it's hard," said Hoffman, previously a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and now a freelancer who has written for GQ, Rolling Stone and other publications. "The conceit is always that you are going to get in there and discover them in some way they haven't been discovered before."

"Drake is a creature of the Internet and social media. He has been blogging since long before he became famous and he tweets pictures of himself," Hoffman said. "He is constantly already exposing himself and the idea is, I am going to expose him anew."

Hoffman's had to make that happen largely based on the 90 minutes she had been granted to visit Aubrey Drake Graham at his home. She stretched that to maybe two hours and mostly let the performer do the telling, and showing - his house, the abundant waterfalls, the pool filled with statues of nude women, all forming a scene, Hoffman wrote, akin to "one of those late-night Lifetime soft-core romance flicks."

Hoffman suggests it is her host who has decided to offer something more than a simple conversation. "He's going to ignore my pen and my tape recorder and my list of questions," she writes, "and open up his soft, emotive heart as if we were on the most amazing first date ever."

When it launched "Esquire Goes on a Date" in the early 1980s, the unusual pretext was all the magazine's idea. The magazine's once and future editor, Lee Eisenberg, wrote the un-bylined stories.

"There would always be this conversation at the beginning of the date," Eisenberg recalled. "Often, the women would say, 'This is not a date, right?' and I would say, 'It's not, because we know it's going to be written up.'" But, Eisenberg added with a laugh: "I would say, 'Can you Method act a little bit and get it in your head this is a bit of a date?'"

The evenings with stars like Susan Sarandon and Charlotte Rampling - a trip to a ball game or a circus or, once, a flight to San Francisco for dinner - would end with, at most, a kiss on the cheek. Men complained the unnamed writer wasn't getting enough action; women found the gentlemanly stance sweet, or so Eisenberg recalled.

Since then, profiles in Esquire and other magazines have been considerably less subtle. A 2006 "Sexiest Woman Alive" piece on Scarlett Johansson by A.J. Jacobs begins with the "scientific study" that found she had the best breasts in Hollywood. In 1999, writer Tom Junod tells Tom Cruise (as noted in Gawker last week) that the actor's then wife, Nicole Kidman, is "right here, in my hotel room. In my bed."

Some sartorial advice for the men of D.M.

I'm sure you're just begging for unsolicited advice, especially on your personal style. You're probably perfectly content with your current "fashion" sense, consisting of boot-cut jeans, square-toed hard bottom shoes and a paisley button-down shirt. Trust me, I am all for your personal happiness, but this city is silently weeping with the lack of style, and we can easily turn that around.

What is "style," you ask? Style is swagger. Style is effortless, but can be acquired with a little effort. Style is calculated. There are tons of definitions, but this column will focus on the aspect of style that is sartorial self-expression.

A friend of mine once said fashion is something anybody can pick up, but style is timeless. Yes, style is also subjective and it isn't all about outward appearance, either. Plus, if you're comfortable in what you wear, who is anyone else to judge?

It is all based on how you perceive yourself and how you think others perceive you. This is where I think there is a major disconnect. With the constant growth of our state's capital, Des Moines deserves for its male inhabitants to care about how they present themselves on any given day. And I don't mean by following trends you may find in the NYCs and the LAs of the world, because those trend-hoppers (or "swaggerjackers" as I like to call them) are no better. But it is about knowing what looks good on you.

So how can you achieve this? First, make sure you have a good tailor on speed dial. Shirts and pants from J. Crew and Von Maur are made to fit a general population, and let's face it, 2 percent of us fit this description. I know I hate when I purchase a shirt with the perfect length, but a width that could fit two of me. A tailor can fix any garment to your exact specifications, so tailoring a shirt will only cost you about $20, but will add to your style quota tenfold. And you could always shop at a specialty shop (like Badowers) that will do its damndest to make sure your clothes fit the second you walk out the door.

Next, find clothes that you wear, not that wear you. It's easy to play dress up with your best John Wayne get-up on Friday, then switch it up for that tubular Justin Bieber look on Saturday. If you don't feel comfortable in what you're wearing, what kind of vibe do you think that gives off? I repeat: Fashion trends are only for the moment, style lasts forever. Find a style that fits you and only you, and stick with it.

You can widen your style spectrum, but don't try and cover all the bases with your wardrobe. Find some items that will be staples to build off, whether it's an oxford shirt, m-65 field jacket, chino pants and Clarks desert boots, or slim-fit raw denim, madras shirt, an unconstructed blazer and dirty bucks.

Lastly, the overall conception of your style should be done for your own self-gratification. Style is an expression of self. Don't do it to fit others' expectations or in an attempt to attract a mate. Hell, don't listen to some guy writing a column. (OK, maybe listen to me a little.) Obtaining the look you feel most comfortable in will increase your swagger, and others will recognize that.

The effervescent and all-knowing Deion Sanders has a motto he lives by, and it definitely hits home: "You look good, you feel good. You feel good, you play good. You play good, they pay good." Truer words have never been spoken.