Mad About Marina

As a Vogue contributing editor, author and fashion expert, Marina Rust shows up on a lot of lists.

Along with the Vogue masthead, she's graced the pages of People magazine in their catalogue of the fifty most beautiful people, along with the countless guest lists for dinner parties, galas, charity balls and premieres that go along with her position. Rust also pops up on page six of The New York Post next to partners-in-crime like Brooke De Ocampo and Aerin Laude, and she's been enrolled in "The Bret Pack," a clique headlined by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis. She snagged a more dubious honor when she made one list of New York's 50 most annoying people, places and things. In better news, Rust was bagged and tagged as simply "It" by Vanity Fair. But long before she took her place among the glitterati with Audrey Hepburn, Jackie O and our girl Gwyneth, Marina Rust was on a different kind of list: the Duke University enrollment list.

"I love Durham," she exhales breezily. "I grew up in D.C., and I'd always wanted to go south for college.... I found out about Duke from the Yale Insider's Guide, and I went down there... even the airport, RDU airport, it moved me. I loved it."

Rust describes her post-grad years in equally windswept tones. "I had fun, and I didn't want to leave Duke. I think that's why I decided to become a writer-it was a great excuse to hang out in Durham. My senior year, I took this short story class. My stuff got a lot of encouragement from the class, and the teacher, my friends."

The work she churned out became the first and last chapters of her first (and so far, last) novel, The Gatherings. The tale of a privileged family, which has been compared both to Ellis and Jane Austen's Emma, received mild critical acclaim-and lots of press. Magazines began to profile the D.C. debutante from Duke, and Rust's rep began stretching from coast to coast. After getting a New York pad in 1988, she headed to L.A. in 1993 and waited for The Gatherings to garner a reaction.

"It was really easy to write," she muses. "I mean, I did it in a couple of months. Revising took much longer. I didn't write it with anyone else in mind, and people reacted very differently... but you can't write something worrying about how other people will react." Look for a second wave of public opinion on August 1, when The Gatherings gets reissued in paperback. As for her next book? "Well, it's a mystery. That's all I can tell you."

Her lips may be sealed about her next novel, but Rust is more than happy to talk about writing for Vogue. After famed Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour praised her first novel, Rust was invited to her house. That led to the two attending a dinner party for Armani, followed shortly thereafter by a meeting. As the two ladies lunched, they planned a column. "We talked about what I might like to write. In August '93, my first article came out."

Rust landed on the Vogue masthead as a contributing editor by 1994, and has remained a name for seven years since. "I do articles, I propose ideas.... It's a really good job." Surprisingly, Rust says the free clothes aren't the best part. "Actually, the best part of my job is that I don't have to figure out what to wear to the office. The reason I'm still a writer is because I can dress like I'm still in college!"she giggles.

We beg to differ.