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New ‘WSJ’ Luxury-Title Editor: Which Archetype to Assign?

Tina Gaudoin

Photo: Observer

Today we learn that Tina Gaudoin will be the editor of a yet-to-exist quarterly luxury supplement to The Wall Street Journal. We imagine it will be sort of like the Times magazine T. Well, probably it will be exactly like it. But anyway, according to the memo obtained by Romenesko:

Tina will bring [the Journal] a valuable set of skills from her extensive career in the magazine world. She began her career at Tatler working as beauty editor. In 1992 she moved to New York to work on the re-launch of Harpers Bazaar. During her time in New York she also worked at Vogue as senior writer and then as a presenter on Barry Diller’s Q2 channel. Returning to London, she became deputy editor of Tatler before launching the women’s magazine Frank. After that she became editorial director of the iVillage UK web site . She joined The Times of London in 2003 as style director of its Saturday magazine and was named editor of the quarterly magazine The Times Luxx in June 2007.


So … luxury-journalism experience … luxury-journalism experience … something about Barry Diller … luxury-journalism experience. Hm. There doesn’t seem to be anything in there about whether she is qualified to run a luxury journalism title. That is, there’s no explanation of whether she has a ridiculously over-the-top personality and outrageously self-demanding personal (and sartorial) daily regimen. With a touching underdog story.

From an article in the Guardian in 2002, which cited a Frank article from 1998:

Four years ago Tina Gaudoin gave up the editorship of the glossy women’s magazine Frank to have a second baby and spend more time with her then two-year-old son. Announcing her departure, she wrote a graphic account in this paper of life as a high-powered career woman and mother — a diet of M&S ready meals, fleeting telephone exchanges with her husband, no sex, her son’s first words (“daddy” and “taxi”), and a salary spent on the nanny, cleaner and dry cleaning bill.

“Most women, myself included, need and want to earn money. When women give up a job, they don’t give up idly and say, ‘I think I’ll go back to painting my toenails.’ Almost five years have passed since I left Frank and I’ve done lots of other things but to this day, to some people, I am still that woman who gave up her job to have a baby.”

OMG! She’s Bonnie Fuller turned Meredith Vieira! We love her already.

London Times Editor Put in Charge of WSJ’s New Lifestyle Tite [Romenesko]
Tina Gaudoin Named Pursuits Editor for Journal [NYO]

New ‘WSJ’ Luxury-Title Editor: Which Archetype to Assign?