A veritable bitchslapfest is taking place between the editors of the Hamptons' gaggle of 'society' weeklies, as evidenced by an Observer piece out yesterday. The he said-she said fights stem back to a controversy that brewed around Memorial Day, when the editors of the new New York Hamptonite accused Social Life of stealing stacks of their magazines and replacing them with the other's publication. As fast as one accused, the other denied, and no winner was ever named in that battle royale.
Described as 'jostling little cousins of Town and Country and W', publications like Hamptons, Social Life, Hampton Sheet and The New York Hamptonite sit in front of stores on Main Streets throughout the East End, free to all who want chronicles of the last week's parties and the (sometimes questionably) boldfaced names who attended them.
Happily co-existing for years now, the magazines only came into question once the economy stalled and the parties to print pictures of became fewer. True blue-bloods and their chroniclers now deem such publications as the work of a 'satellite society', one that tries 'to create a hierarchy out of publicity', something they believe should precede it. Snap.
The editors of these fake society pages have a no holds barred approach to their competition as well. The fledgling New York Hamptonite was founded this summer by Aidan Vola, a plumber from Sayville who invested his own money to start the magazine. Vola's ongoing war with Social Life editor and Bravo reality show guest star Devorah Rose was only compounded by the fact that Rose claimed Vola 'Olivia Palermo['d] us!' You can imagine what that means. Hampton Sheet's Joan Jedell has a vendetta of her own against Hamptons publisher Jason Binn, who she believes to be taking credit for a model that she though of herself 12 years ago. Exhausting. If it's any consolation, New York Social Diary's David Patrick Columbia believes, 'They’ll be wiped out. They’re almost all going to go.'
· Society-Mag Smackdown [NYO]