The New York Times on Wednesday named Stella Bugbee to edit its Styles section — a day after the embarrassing announcement that New York magazine had hired the paper’s previous Styles editor, Choire Sicha.
Bugbee’s hire at the Times means that she is effectively switching places with Sicha, who is taking her previous job as editor at large at New York magazine. That’s despite the Times strenuously insisting for weeks that Sicha was staying at the paper, and merely leaving the helm of the Styles section in favor of an undefined newsletter project.
“Stella brings to The Times a broad and ambitious vision for Styles coverage, one that embraces fashion and lifestyle even as it explores issues of politics, gender, power and fame,” said the memo from executive editor Dean Baquet, managing editor Joe Kahn and assistant managing editor Sam Sifton.
The memo likewise noted that Bugbee was a “gifted manager.” That’s an area where Sicha was seen as deficient by critics including Times deputy managing editor Carolyn Ryan, who reportedly clashed with Sicha over his hands-off, freewheeling style.
Bugbee, slated to start her new job on June 21, is a former editor of The Cut, the fashion vertical of