Vladimir V. Putin is a fashion victim, addicted to luxurious clothes. Or at least he is according to the Russian version of Esquire magazine, which “posed” him as a model in December, the snow-peaked Kremlin towers in the background, in a pretentious fashion shoot that was actually a trick of the magazine’s art department. Putting on Putin has become a tradition at the Russian Esquire. Back in April 2005, when it first came out, the magazine created a stir when it published a “poem” by Putin, titled “I Was a Gardener Myself,” which the editors had Frankensteined out of various presidential statements from the previous five years. They illustrated it with a portrait that merged Putin and Pushkin, the Romantic Russian poet and novelist of the nineteenth century.

Successive issues would, Russian tongue firmly in cheek, reveal more reasons for the nation’s admiration of Putin: his passion for judo, his use of the vernacular, his resemblance to the fictional character Otto von Stirlitz, an imaginary Soviet secret agent who infiltrated Nazi intelligence. Russian Esquire in July 2005 used Putin’s imaginary responses to accusations of his involvement in the controversial imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Yukos oil baron, for a brief English-language course published in the magazine. Sample quote: “I have nothing to do with it.”

Esquire in Russia (it is editorially independent of the American version) has acquired a reputation as an anti-Putin island, willing to criticize the political establishment and embrace the liberal elite. Interviews from Hollywood actors and directors, syndicated from the U.S. Esquire, run alongside quality Russian fare, both floating in a lake of advertisements for luxury goods. The magazine mixes scathing satire and political ideas with the sweet seduction of an ad for a leather blazer or a trendy perfume. There are essays written...

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