We Have to Go Back: NY Mag's Iconic Power Girls Cover

Meet a new WHN franchise where we revisit the pop culture past.

Hi, hi, hello.

Welcome to a new franchise I’m testing out over here at WHNHQ called We Have to Go Back where we look to our pop culture past and do some communal remembering.

We know I love me some nostalgia so really anything and everything is on the table: songs, movies, TV shows (or even specific episodes), magazine covers, major (or just major to me) moments, etc.

I did, in fact, mean to get this out to you yesterday, but alas, life had other plans. But I love today’s topic—the December, 7, 1998 New York mag “Power Girls” cover story—so very much. As someone who grew up a magazine junkie and then became a magazine editor, I naturally love stories that leave a lasting imprint. Think “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”, “The Falling Man”, that Quincy Jones Vulture story, “Bradley Cooper Is Not Really Into This Profile”…the list goes on and on.

I think a part of my brain never left the place that read this story back when it was first published. It is hard to express the impact this piece had on the culture in NYC at the time, and especially on generation of young women who were just starting out their careers in the worlds of PR and media. But I’m going to give it try.

This story was both ABOUT the moment and WAS the moment. She was that girl, while simultaneously telling us about that girl. The writer, Vanessa Grigoriadis, shot to writer superstardom in my mind and many others. I was like, wait might I someday have MY name on a cover?!? I cannot express how cool I thought she was and how much I wanted to BE her.

The whole story is also just so insanely, wildly cunty. Let’s dive into it, shall we?