Who

Former rock critic France heads up Lucky, the magazine/catalog hybrid that makes a profit helping other companies do the same.

Backstory

France grew up in Houston—her mother was a jewelry designer, her father ran a glass lamination company—and attended Oberlin. After graduation she moved to New York and got an editorial assistant's job at defunct weekly 7 Days, edited by fellow Oberlin grad Adam Moss. She later became a staff writer (and rap authority) at Jane Pratt's legendary teen bible Sassy and had staff jobs at Elle, New York, and Spin. When Jade Hobson Charnin, the then-fashion director at New York, talked France up to Condé Nast's James Truman, he asked her to develop a prototype for a new type of fashion magazine. The result was Lucky, which doesn't even pretend that its readers are interested in anything except what new stuff to buy. The monthly "magalog" launched in 2000 and has been remarkably successful, although attempts to mimic the format for men (Cargo, Vitals) haven't been so, um, lucky.

Personal

In the summer of 2001, France married Michael Morse, a high school English teacher she knew from college. They've since divorced. (Lucky readers got to read all about it in her editor's letter). The couple lived in a Carroll Gardens townhouse, but she now lives on lower Fifth Avenue, in the same building as Bill Hemmer and Amy Gross.