WORLD_ Syria: Vogue writer says she was 'duped' by Asma al-Assad

Syria: Vogue writer says she was 'duped' by Asma al-Assad

The American writer behind a famously flattering Vogue profile of Asma al-Assad has described how she was "duped" by the Syrian president's wife.

Joan Juliet Buck said she had initially been reluctant to meet the Assads Photo: Getty Images


By Nick Allen, Los Angeles
5:57PM BST 30 Jul 2012

Joan Juliet Buck's 3,200-word article, headlined "A Rose in the Desert," was published in March 2011 and described the British-born Mrs Assad as "glamorous, young and very chic – the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies".

Writing in Newsweek magazine 14 months later the author called Mrs Assad "the first lady of hell" and outlined how "the devil and his wife" had "showed off their fantasy lives for me".

Buck said she had initially been reluctant to meet the Assads and "should have said no" when Vogue called with the assignment, but she had been "curious".

She said that, at the time of the interview in Syria in December 2010, fashion magazines had regarded the country as a "forbidden kingdom, full of silks, essences, palaces, and ruins, run by a modern president and an attractive, young first lady".

The writer said Mrs Assad had seemed "as friendly as a new acquaintance at a friend's cocktail party" and had "sounded like the kind of young Englishwoman you'd hear having lunch at the next table at Harvey Nichols."


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However, the author also revealed how, on a visit to a youth centre, Mrs Assad had caused children to cry by falsely telling them the place was closing. Mrs Assad told her it was "just to get them out of their comfort zone."

The writer also described how, during a family fondue at the Assad residence, she asked Bashar al-Assad why he had wanted to be an eye doctor and he replied: "It's very precise, and there is very little blood."

The profile was remove from Vogue's website in the Spring and editor-in-chief Anna Wintour issued a statement deploring the actions of the Assad regime.




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