No, not Cosmo Cramer, the wacky, lovable character from SEINFELD portrayed, sad to say, by a real-life jackass named Michael Richards. I’m talking about Cosmo, short for COSMOPOLITAN, the magazine devoted to women having orgasms. But Nicolas de Gunzburg never worked for Cosmo. He DID serve as an editor for both VOGUE and HARPER’S BAZAAR, though, among others. He was a bigtime fashion dude.
(Alright, true confession, here: I often write stream-of-consciousness style, and tend to check to make sure my facts are all straight afterwards. But I liked the way “VAMPYR and Cosmo” sounded better than “VAMPYR and VOGUE”, despite the alliteration, so I decided to keep it. Despite the fact that Nicolas de Gunzburg never wrote for Cosmo and has no connection to SEINFELD.)
And if you are wondering who Nicolas de Gunzburg is, or was, that’s okay. I didn’t know either. Baron Nicolas Louis Alexandre de Gunzburg was born to a wealthy Russian Jewish family in Paris, France. In his teens and early twenties, he was a famous patron of the Arts and a party boy. He lost his fortune, immigrated to America, and became involved in the world of Fashion, serving as editor and editor-in-chief to those aforementioned fashion-focused magazines, as well as others. He served as a mentor to famous designers Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein. Oh, and he also played the lead role in the classic 1932 masterpiece VAMPYR.
Interesting, no?