Editor & Writer Nick Haramis On the art of the high-low

Not many editors have shown their dedication to curating contemporary culture with as much irreverence and wit as Nick Haramis. Nick’s career has spanned publications known for their independence of spirit like Bullett and BlackBook; to Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine; to a full-circle return to the New York Times as Editor-at-Large for their cultural bellwether,T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Four years as Editor-in-Chief of Interview served as a singular, expansive playground to honour Warhol’s legacy of bridging the gap between the high-minded and the pop.

Editors do more than refine the voices of contributors; they shape the choices and outlook of their readers. “Magazines are about clout,” he’s said, “but that is only interesting to a point. We’re not a news source.” To be a great editor requires problem-solving and a talent for visual storytelling that promotes its own identity while constantly engaging in dialogue with the words that came before it. At T, Nick pushes the boundaries of conversations about style and taste, often positioning a story between its most subversive and its most surprising elements.

James Wright: For Interview’s fifty year anniversary, you wrote a piece that posed the question: “Why is anyone still making magazines in 2019?” Five years later, how would you answer that same question?

Nick Haramis: When I think about all the horrible things happening in the world in 2024, and how in 2019 there were different but still terrible events, it's easy to feel that our work in creative fields is unimportant. This is something I’ve wrestled with my entire adult life, often thinking I should have been a doctor or a lawyer, someone helping in a more tangible way. There's a nagging voice that questions the value of creative work. However, I truly believe that telling stories is invaluable. Art and creative expression matter, especially during tough times. Long-form pieces offer a unique window into someone's creative psyche, while some of the best art emerges from the most challenging periods. 

JW: The last time we spoke, you mentioned teaching at Parsons School of Design. Are you still doing that?

NH: I’m not. I taught largely because I was trying to conquer my fears. I have many fears I’m trying to check off my list through what you might call ‘immersion therapy’. Teaching was my way of facing a crippling fear of speaking in front of people, and I thought there was no group more intimidating than undergrads interested in fashion. On the first day of class, I almost didn’t go. I thought: "I’ll just not show up and they won’t be able to find me." I went, and though I was initially so nervous, it was great and extremely rewarding.

JW: New York has remained a constant for you and your career. How have you felt the culture shift in the city, since the time you moved from Canada in 2007?

NH: I think that's such a great and impossible question to answer. I moved here the day after I graduated from college. I was a child and didn't have any sense of what I was doing, which in retrospect was pretty cool. Last night I went to the Hermès show and while walking home to the subway with a colleague and a friend, we were marvelling at all the young people sitting out on restaurant patios, commenting on how jealous and envious we were of them for having their entire lives ahead of them. When I first moved here, culturally there was this tenor to the city, something like what I imagine the ‘80s would have been like: a real clawing ambition to get…something. But unlike kids in the eighties who grew up with a very specific kind of ambition and mentality, I  look at young people today – the kids I taught at Parsons for instance –  and I think:‘Oh wow, you guys kind of figured it out.’ Cruelty is not a part of the way this younger generation seems to think or relate to one another. 

JW: How do you define ‘pop culture’?

NH: Pop culture, to me, has always just been culture. It could mean a really obscure show by an obscure artist, an inscrutable poem next to a politician, and then you flip the page and there's a porn star. It's the tapestry of the lives we live – a mix of high and low – it’s everything coming together to reflect the way we live now. That, to me, is pop culture.

JW: You mentioned that one of your gateways to culture was reading the Vanity Fair ‘Hollywood Issue,’ and yet, magazines that deal in a somewhat open-ended subject matter are now perceived as vague and imprecise to advertisers and supposedly readers. Why do you think the description of magazines as ‘General Interest’ became pejorative?

NH: I don’t. The argument is that if you're a generalist, you're not an expert on anything. However, while some publications focus on specific interests, like movies, fashion, or music magazines, most generalist publications aim for consistency of tone or taste rather than subject matter. There are still many niche magazines, but I think most of the bigger publications try to capture a particular reader, a level of taste, or an aesthetic, rather than focusing on one specific beat.

JW: T Magazine of the New York Times obviously has a very defined identity and voice, ultimately positioned as a ‘style’ magazine where fashion, furniture, and design are central to each issue. How did it feel to return to T Magazine after four years at Interview? Did it take some time to recalibrate your writing and editing style, tonally?

NH: Particularly coming from Interview, where the conceit is two people in a room together having a conversation about whatever is on their minds when the recorder is turned on, I felt that I was almost a little rusty in shaping the stories I was writing. The previous approach was much looser, entirely at odds with what I needed for T. I've always agonised over a sentence. I can't write the second sentence of a piece until I think the first sentence is impeccable, which makes the process of writing really difficult for me.

I think it was the writer Eudora Welty who said that "Inspiration came flowing from the ocean like through an open window breeze," which has not been my experience. I try to make it as pleasant an experience as possible – I light candles and play soft music. Still, sometimes I find myself so lost in the words themselves that, by the end of it, the piece won't be asking any of the right questions or the framing will be entirely off because I've gone down some crazy word rabbit hole to make it sound the way I think it should.

Particularly with these fashion profiles, I always try to take a step back and think about what is interesting about the subject. Why are we writing about this person? Often, I don't have an answer to that until I've written the entire first draft, only to throw it away and start again from scratch.

JW: Would you now describe yourself as a fashion journalist? 

NH: I've always defined myself as a generalist, interested in people – whether they are fashion designers, actors, or artists. I'm curious about what makes people tick, how they overcome adversity, and why they do what they do. Why do we become obsessed with certain things? So, to answer your question, I never considered myself a fashion journalist. However, since returning to T, my beat has increasingly focused on fashion. Because I didn't come from the fashion world, I approach it with a wide-eyed perspective. I am still in awe of all the money and egos that consume the creativity in this field. I’m an outsider looking in, though I’ve leaned into it since I’ve been doing a lot of fashion profiles. So, I guess I am a fashion journalist.

JW: Do you feel that, entering the election year, although you're a style publication, discussions touching on the current moment in politics and what it means for the country will inevitably feed into discussions about culture and style?

NH: I think it goes back to your first question. Nothing exists in a vacuum. And while fashion is perceived by many to be the least consequential pursuit, a billion-dollar industry centred on fancy clothes – it isn’t immune to what's going on in the world. People aren't making clothes without considering current events, whether it's sustainability or representation.

Particularly among emerging designers, you see a lot of people grappling with what's happening around them and how they want to present themselves or how they want their clients to present themselves. T isn’t a political magazine, but the topics we discuss do reflect what's going on.

JW: The Michelle Obama experience – you’ve said it was like meeting the Beatles. What was it about that day that felt so special and memorable, leading you to publish the book that you did subsequently? Can you tell us a little bit about the experience of shooting at the White House itself?

NH: It was an incredible experience. It goes back to chasing your ideal subject. I believe Vogue came out right before, but I think we had done her last cover while she was the First Lady. I remember chasing the story and then getting the email back from the White House saying that Michelle Obama had agreed to do the cover, and being absolutely gobsmacked. Then going to the White House with Patrick Lee, who's still our creative director, and with Collier Schorr, our photographer. So often the experiences that become the most memorable, you only realise how memorable they are after the fact. But this was an occasion where you were acutely aware of how crazy it was as it was happening. 

We went into the Diplomatic Reception Room, which is where we photographed Mrs. Obama. She came in, and I was so nervous. But then almost immediately, you kind of forget that it's Michelle Obama because she was so cool and warm, and because she wanted to play Beyoncé. I just remember thinking: ‘How am I in the White House listening to Beyoncé with the First Lady?’ It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was amazing.

JW: To touch briefly on your life before T Magazine and Interview, you worked at the – since shuttered – Bullett magazine which was started around the same time as I was starting So It Goes magazine. I remember feeling a real kinship with you all: there was an irreverence and a ‘high-low’ sensibility when it came to your contributors and cover stars. Were there ‘teachable moments’ at Bullett that you carried over to Interview?

NH: My five years at BlackBook before joining Bullett made me more experienced than many of my fellow editors and colleagues. I felt confident that I knew how to make a magazine, while it seemed like everyone else didn't. But the rules I adhered to didn't necessarily apply to everyone else, and I had to constantly recalibrate my sense of the right and wrong way of doing things. The experience left me with a general openness to different approaches, which I've carried with me since. Anytime I start to think ‘this is the way you write a lead,’ or ‘this is how a story should be shaped,’ or ‘this is how the front of a book should look,’ the publication becomes boring. 

Bullett was a bunch of incredibly talented and wonderful people who wanted to make a magazine but had never actually leafed through one. That's what made it so cool. I remember doing an ‘Obsession’ issue where we had Daniel Radcliffe photographed as a 1950s pin-up on one cover, and when you flipped the magazine over, we had Juliette Lewis playing his stalker. We turned all the images into movie posters, underwear with his face on it, and a birthday cake for Juliette's cover. It was incredible to see our ideas come to life. Someone would suggest, “What if this was a scratch-and-sniff page or a sticker page?” My initial impulse would be to say no, that's not how magazines are made. But I learned it was much more fun to say, "Yeah, what if we did that?" That openness to experimentation is something I've tried to stick with as I've moved forward.

JW: Given the storied history of the publication, what was your editorial vision when you were appointed Editor-in-Chief at Interview?

NH: I knew what I didn't want it to be. Interview was really interesting because it had been around for about 45 years when I first started, and it always had distinct identities. It started as a film publication, then became all about pop culture, and served as a place for Warhol to feature prospective collectors and people he wanted to align with. It always reflected the tastes of the people who ran it, but the one constant was the template of two people talking, with each editor bringing it to life in different ways. 

When I inherited it, it had become a very capital ‘F’ fashion magazine, with an aesthetic that was pioneering at its advent. However, it didn't reflect the magazine I fell in love with, which was sophisticated but also silly, inviting rather than alienating. It could tell a story about a politician discussing real issues and an actor talking about what they had for lunch. It was holistic. I wanted it to feel warmer, softer, and perhaps more surprising. Not to disparage how it was, because it was great, too, but I wanted to make it colourful in a very literal, visual way.

JW: You spoke about Interview’s embrace of both the mainstream and the marginalised. Can you describe an editorial meeting where you would debate who should be paired with who and why?

NH: Under my editorship and now, it's been a small team. There were maybe ten people in a room, and everyone would go around and talk. That's why it's so important to have a truly diverse staff in every sense of the word. People brought in ideas based on conversations with friends or things they’d seen in the world. Homogenising that would be a disservice to any publication. Everyone had different interests and ideas, and you could sense when you hit on something great – people would react. You knew you’d struck a nerve worth exploring. Although we didn’t always pursue those stories, it was fun to think about why we should or shouldn’t.

JW: The format of Interview’s  ‘talent-on-talent’ conversation – two people who often have nothing in common with one another – has long since been aped. Can you envisage a bold and novel way of keeping celebrity profiles dynamic and unexpected?

NH: I think I'm cautious not to indulge in nostalgia, because that's a mistake. But there was a time when the machine wasn't as well-oiled, and celebrities in interviews would go completely off the rails in a genuine and exciting way. Nowadays, people are so aware of their personal brand and image that it can feel difficult to capture their true essence and provoke an unfiltered response. I particularly love it when you get a piece and you can tell the publicist is going to be upset, because it means someone is revealing something real about themselves.

JW: The one that left a lasting impact on me was the extremely long profile of Donald Glover in the New Yorker a few years back. You credit Gay Talese’s piece, ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’, for inspiring you to become a journalist. If you were to shadow a celebrity for three months, much like Talese's approach, who would you choose to write about?

NH: I'm fascinated by people who have disappeared or stepped away from the spotlight. Tracy Chapman, for example, released incredibly influential music and was widely celebrated. She may not have been a household name, but she remains an icon. Then she retreated from public life and only recently resurfaced with a Grammy performance. I'm always intrigued by the decision to give up fame and find out where that impulse comes from. And then what does your life look like after that?

Another person I'm fascinated by is Fairuza Balk. She starred as Nancy in The Craft, a movie I loved growing up. After doing some art-house films, she also retreated from public life to pursue art and hasn't been interviewed in years. But there are also those who have never retreated from public life but have never fully participated in it either. In the fashion world, designers like Rei Kawakubo, Hedi Slimane, and Martin Margiela don't engage much with the public. Their choice to remain somewhat elusive makes them particularly intriguing to me.

JW: What's your most cherished interview?

NH: The last one, no matter what it is.

JW:  What was your last one?

NH: It was a profile of Rick Owens.

JW: How do you consciously engage with print and digital differently? Previously you’ve spoken about how with digital media, you are a consumer, keeping up with the news at home or your favourite cultural gossip. By contrast, you approach reading print by saying, “I want to be the passive one. I want the editor to lead me.” Can you elaborate on that?

 NH: Well, that's what I find funny about people known primarily as print editors transitioning to the internet. It's not as if they have a stack of print publications waiting on their desks. Maybe for some, but for me, I have a bad habit of opening Instagram before any news source when I wake up. Maybe it's better that way; I don't know. Somehow, my algorithm often feeds me newsy content, even though I'm just looking for pictures of friends. Breaking news often comes from my phone.

Then I read the New York Times. We have a hybrid office, so I go in three days a week, and on those days, I pick up the physical paper. My default homepage is the NYT. The internet serves as my entry into whatever I'm diving into. I've curated my Instagram feed to follow the publications I love, and I'm quick to check LinkedIn bios to find out about new cover stories or appealing pieces.

I'm a big fan of the journalism in The Sunday Magazine, which is incredible, and I really enjoy reading it. I also read the New Yorker with more than a bit of a competitive edge. Because there are only so many people competing for similar stories, when I see a piece appear elsewhere and done really well, I often think, ‘Oh, it could have been done better’. 

JW: How do you view the future of long-form journalism through today’s rabbit hole of ‘content’?

NH: Magazines used to be the place for people to get information – I listened to albums based on their recommendations and discovered movies and points of interest through them. Any movie star crushes or interesting tidbits all came from the pages of magazines. Now, magazines don't serve that purpose. People aren't necessarily going to a publication to discover someone or something. The idea that you need a magazine editor to tell you what’s about to be cool no longer aligns with how people consume culture. And yet...they still represent a really special place where you can be immersed in a world, learn something new or gain a previously unknown perspective. 

Follow Nick via @nickkharamis