Former Conde Nast Editor Claims She Was “Only Allowed” to Feature White Models

Just two months after Vogue Brazil's fashion director resigned from her role with the company after being called out for cultural insensitivity, another Condé Nast International title is in hot water. According to WWD, a beauty editor at Glamour Hungary told photographer Brenda Nasr, the magazine "is only allowed to have editorials with Caucasian models." At the time, the photographer was pitching a fashion editorial shot with a single Black model.

“In an industry like this, you typically can’t call people out, because you never know for sure,” Nasr tells WWD. “You might have a hunch that they don’t want something [for a specific reason], but you can’t call them out directly — but she just told me.” When Nasr reached out to Condé Nast International, Glamour Hungary's editor-in-chief Krisztina Maróy apologized for "any offense" to her as "we absolutely did not mean to." Further, Nasr tells WWD, Maróy said she considers she and her colleagues “committed devotee[s] of human rights, democracy and female empowerment.” Maróy claims the editor was "rather awkward" because English isn't her first language.

“[The editor] simply meant that our beauty pages work on mirroring the reader and in a magazine like Glamour and in a country like Hungary they are practical, not inspirational,” Maróy wrote. However, Wolfgang Blau, president of Condé Nast Internatonal called the comments “wrong, offensive and indefensible.” “We at Conde Nast International unreservedly apologize for that.” Further, the editor, who was freelance, will no longer work for the magazine — or any other Condé Nast magazine for that matter.

“All of our fashion and beauty editorial teams around the world not only embrace diversity but are actively promoting and celebrating inclusion in all its forms,” Blau says. “This quite explicitly includes our Glamour team in Hungary, which has consistently promoted new models and talent of all backgrounds and races.”

Blau also said that CNI is “reviewing Glamour Hungary’s diversity policy together with the editor in chief as well as the team’s internal training programs for staff and freelancers so that this never happens again.”