New York Magazine’s New Cover Is Hard to Miss

Man with beard making surprised face against gray background — Photo: G-Stock Studio / Shutterstock

New York Magazine put a transgender actor on the cover of the first men’s style issue in its nearly six-decade history.

Quick Take

Elliot Page appears partially nude on the cover of New York Magazine’s debut men’s style issue, subtitled “Men’s Style: A Special Issue about Putting Clothes on and Taking Them Off Again.”
The magazine hired former GQ editor Samuel Hine as senior men’s style editor in May 2026 to help build the new franchise.
Page shares cover space with other celebrities, including singer Troye Sivan and actor Christopher Abbott.
The issue marks the first standalone men’s style edition in the magazine’s history, which dates back to 1968.

A Six-Decade First For A City Magazine

New York Magazine has covered fashion since it launched in 1968, but it never dedicated a full issue solely to men’s style until now. Editor-in-chief David Haskell announced the plan in May 2026, calling it “the first of its kind in the magazine’s nearly six-decade history”. The issue hit newsstands in late September, timed to fall fashion season and built around a mix of celebrity covers and style features.

Who Made The Cover

Elliot Page, who came out as transgender in 2020, appears partially nude on one of the covers, alongside singer Troye Sivan and actor Christopher Abbott. The subtitle leaves little to guesswork about the issue’s theme: clothes coming on and off. Page’s inclusion in a magazine’s first-ever men’s style special drew immediate attention online, with viewers and commentators reacting within hours of the issue’s release.

Social media reaction split quickly along familiar lines. Some users questioned the editorial choice outright, while others focused on production details of the cover shoot itself. Either way, the image became the most-discussed part of the issue almost overnight, overshadowing the broader menswear content Hine and his team spent months assembling.

The Editorial Build-Up Behind The Launch

Samuel Hine joined New York Magazine as senior men’s style editor in late May 2026, leaving GQ to take the role. His job included writing features, running a weekly menswear newsletter, and steering content for the new standalone issue. The magazine also launched “New York Look,” a men’s style newsletter named after a similar special section the publication ran briefly between 2007 and 2008.

The hire signaled a real investment, not a one-off stunt. New York Magazine has long served both male and female readers since its founding, distinguishing it from many single-gender lifestyle titles that came later. Building a dedicated men’s style franchise fits a broader industry trend of magazines carving out separate verticals to compete for advertiser dollars in a shrinking print market.

Why The Cover Choice Matters Beyond Fashion

Putting Page on the inaugural men’s cover was clearly a deliberate editorial signal, not an accident. Research on media coverage of transgender individuals has found that outlets often center the most provocative identity angle while giving less attention to the underlying story, and that trans people themselves are quoted far less often than outside commentators in stories about them. That pattern raises a fair question here: did the cover serve the fashion content, or did the fashion content serve the cover.

Conservative readers will likely see this as another example of a legacy outlet reaching for a culture-war headline rather than letting a menswear launch stand on its own. A new editor, a new newsletter, and months of planning went into this issue, yet the public conversation has centered almost entirely on one cover choice. That outcome was foreseeable, and arguably the point, given how identity-driven casting reliably generates more buzz than button-down shirts and boots.

New York Magazine @NYMag DIGITALLY REMOVED ELLEN PAGE'S SCARS FROM HER CHEST!!!! FOR A 1ST EVER MENS STYLE EDITION!! YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP. GO WOKE GO BROKE!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/kZWY039NyE

— cmb31415 (@cmb3141526496) September 28, 2026

Whatever the intent, the launch achieved what most special issues chase: attention. Whether that attention translates into a lasting men’s style franchise for New York Magazine, or simply another viral cover cycle, will depend on what the publication does with Hine’s newsletter and future issues going forward.