Teen Vogue Ridiculed for Dissolving Politics Team Just One Day Before ‘Major Election’: ‘A Knife in the Back’

The NewsGuild of New York says the consolidation with Vogue.com was “clearly designed to blunt” the outlet when “it is needed the most”

Editorial content head of Vogue, Chloe Malle, attends Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 30, 2025. (Credit: Hanna Lassen/Getty Images)
Editorial content head of Vogue, Chloe Malle, attends Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 30, 2025. (Credit: Hanna Lassen/Getty Images)

Former Teen Vogue staffers took to social media Monday to mourn the loss of the magazine’s politics vertical and its team of progressive young journalists.

Several users, including former staffers and advocates of the brand, condemned the magazine for the absorption of its youth arm.

Condé Nast’s union and the NewsGuild of New York “strongly condemned” the parent company’s decision to lump Teen Vogue under the Vogue.com umbrella. A statement from the union noted the move was “clearly designed to blunt the award-winning magazine’s insightful journalism at a time when it is needed the most.”

“Condé leadership owes us–and Teen Vogue’s readership–answers. We will get those answers,” the statement read. “And we fight for our rights as workers with a collective bargaining agreement as we fight for the work we do, and the people we do it for.”

As part of the restructuring, the magazine’s editor-in-chief Versha Sharma was laid off from the media company. Vogue’s new editorial content head Chloe Malle will now oversee both Vogue and Teen Vogue. The outlet’s news and politics editor, Lex McMenamin, was also laid off and wrote in a post that, to their knowledge, there would be no “political staffers” left at the publication after today.

Former Teen Vogue reporter Emily Bloch wrote that folding the youth magazine into Vogue.com is “more than an absorption” of the brand. She noted that the timing felt convenient just one day ahead of the New York mayoral election.

“We now know that the Teen Vogue fold is more than an absorption & clearly a full shift from the pub’s DNA,” she wrote. “Laying off the entire politics team a day before the NYC election is heinous + a knife in the back to a brand that has solidified its importance for youth. Devastating.”

“Laying off the Teen Vogue pol editor the day before a major election Teen Vogue has covered that is consequential to Teen Vogue’s main demographic … got it,” Bloch wrote in another X post.

Condé Nast did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Former style editor at Teen Vogue Aiyana Ishmael wrote in a post to Bluesky that she was laid off this week. Ishmael said she was one of two Black women left at the publication at their summit in late September. After the layoffs, she said they both are gone.

“Now, there are no Black women at Teen Vogue and that is incredibly painful to think about,” she wrote.

I was laid off from Teen Vogue this week, alongside multiple other phenomenal team members. At our Summit, I was asked how it felt to be 1 of 2 Black women left and what that meant for representation. Now, there are no Black women at Teen Vogue and that is incredibly painful to think about.

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— Aiyana Ishmael (@aiyanaish.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 3:57 PM

Not all social media users condemned the decision, though. One user praised the decision to lump the brand into Vogue. “Many they/thems out of a job,” the post read. “I voted for this.”

Keep reading for more reactions to Vogue.com absorbing Teen Vogue:

Teen Vogue logo (Getty Images)
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Tess Patton

Tess joined TheWrap as the company’s first reporting fellow in 2024. Tess is from Birmingham, Alabama and attended the University of Southern California, graduating with degrees in theatre and journalism. She also served as the executive editor for Annenberg Media, closely overseeing coverage of campus protests amidst the Israel-Hamas War.

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