She was born Marcia Weinraub on June 10, 1939, within the Bronx to Dorothy (Lautman) and Ralph Weinraub, an actual property agent often known as Lefty. She attended New York College for 3 years, finding out retailing and journalism (and profitable Miss New York College in 1959).
She labored as a purchaser and trend director for Gimbels division retailer, amongst different emporia, after which opened a cool clothes boutique, Abracadabra, on the Higher East Aspect within the late Nineteen Sixties, the ornament of which concerned a mirrored erector-set contraption salvaged from an previous amusement park. She met her longtime associate, Chris Flanders, an actor turned contractor previously named Christian Van der Put, when he helped her construct a show for the shop. He didn’t suppose the identify Marcia match her; to him, she was extra of an Annie. So she adopted that identify, alongside along with his final identify, although they by no means married.
In 1988, Particulars was purchased by Advance Publications, the publishing empire of the Newhouse household, which owns Vogue, amongst different shiny titles, for a reported $2 million. Jonathan Newhouse was its writer that first yr, earlier than transferring to Paris in 1989 to supervise the corporate’s worldwide titles.
Regardless of its recognition and affect, Particulars struggled financially, although on the time of its sale it had a paid circulation of 100,000. Ms. Flanders was fired two years later, and the journal was reimagined as a males’s publication, with James Truman, a former Vogue editor, as its editor in chief. The journal was closed in 2015.
Within the Nineties, Ms. Flanders and her household moved to Hollywood, the place she reinvented herself as an actual property agent, although she didn’t drive, working along with her daughter, Rosie, who did. Her daughter survives her. Mr. Flanders died in 2007.
Many years by no means finish neatly, and the ’80s have been no exception. By 1989 the ranks of the downtown world that Ms. Flanders had so lovingly chronicled had been decimated by AIDS. Ms. Mueller died that yr, as did 1000’s extra.
“We thought it will final perpetually,” mentioned Mr. Musto. “We thought the journal would final perpetually.”
