The Business of Magazines

[Xone]

And those are the people allegedly knows about publishing business?...it sounds like a hot mess.....Weird they didn't mention nothing about France...

 

[Starry]

Remember this moment, my friends. This is the new beginning of the end of Vogue magazine.

 

[LoveFashion25]

Remember this moment, my friends. This is the new beginning of the end of Vogue magazine.

It was a great run.

 

[8eight]

Vogue’s Global September Issue Will Feature More Shared Content, Different Covers

The issue marks the most extensive global content collaboration for Vogue since Condé Nast merged its international and US branches and promoted Anna Wintour as its global head.

By Chantal Fernandez August 5, 2021 04:30

When Vogue readers from Mexico City to Milan and Shanghai pick up their September issue, traditionally the most important release of the year, each will have a different model or celebrity on the cover. Inside, however, they will find many of the same images, including a fashion editorial styled and curated by editors in London and New York.
International Vogue editions have shared content before, most recently in March. But this issue, themed “New Beginnings,” marks the most extensive collaboration since Condé Nast merged its international and US branches in 2019. Where those past issues shared a theme or an editorial portfolio, this September, Vogue is sharing more than a handful of stories across print, digital and video.

“This issue represents an evolution of our newly collaborative approach to storytelling, in which editors around the world work together on stories with Vogue’s global audience in mind,” said Anna Wintour, Vogue’s global editorial director and Condé Nast’s chief content officer, in a statement.

Unlike at GQ, which enlisted The Weeknd to appear on 17 of 21 international September issues, the Vogue covers remain distinct from market to market. American Vogue is expected to go with an American fashion theme to correspond with the Met Gala in September. The covers will connect in subtle ways, however, with each including an interpretation of a sunrise.

Vogue editors-in-chief in Germany, India, Italy, Japan and Spain have exited the company in the last year as part of a consolidation strategy announced last December, designed to cut costs and help the publisher invest in digital and return to profitability after several challenging years of heavy losses. Longtime American Vogue editor Anna Wintour was appointed global head of the title. British editor Edward Enninful was promoted to oversee Europe and Taiwan’s editor Leslie Sun was given oversight of Japan and India.

As part of the new structure, Vogue will appoint heads of editorial content in regions where editors-in-chief previously operated independently from their peers in the US and UK, competing with them for advertisers, photographers and celebrities. So far, Francesca Ragazzi has been named the head in Italy and Ines Lorenzo in Spain; both were internal promotions. But many content head positions are still not finalised, and more editor-in-chief departures are expected.

Vogue China’s September issue marks Margaret Zhang’s first as editor in chief since she was appointed in February, succeeding Angelica Cheung after her exit last November.

Meanwhile, in the US, Virginia Smith is among the Vogue staffers with new responsibilities — she is now the global head of fashion network, in charge of all shoots across markets and platforms. She oversaw an editorial for September styled by British Vogue fashion directors Julia Sarr-Jamois and Poppy Kain as well as American Vogue contributing editors Camilla Nickerson and Alex Harrington, focusing on different themes in fall fashion and marking the first such collaboration for Vogue.

Other shared content for September includes a portfolio of emerging designers, with nominations from each market, and a profile of Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, now collaborating at Prada.

Smith said Vogue will aim to reflect more points of view moving forward. “That idea of highlighting global voices across fashion is definitely something that we’ll be interested in doing even more,” she said.

bof

nothing to do with saving lots of money then?

 

[Hafyiez wafa]

Ex-Condé Nast China Publisher to Launch Attitude Magazine China | BoF

 

[aracic]

“This issue represents an evolution of our newly collaborative approach to storytelling, in which editors around the world work together on stories with Vogue’s global audience in mind,” said Anna Wintour

Evolution? Storytelling?? b*tch, where?!

They are destroying their own legacy, this is so upsetting and embarrassing. What's worst is that they're so convinced they're doing a good thing. How can they all be so delusional? Who's gonna buy this? You got the global audience in mind???? Sure, jan.

giphy

And please!! The audacity she had when she said ''editors around the world'' when in the two shared editorials all the editors involved are either british or american.

They all make me so angry.

 

[LoveFashion25]

Evolution? Storytelling?? b*tch, where?!

They are destroying their own legacy, this is so upsetting and embarrassing. What's worst is that they're so convinced they're doing a good thing. How can they all be so delusional? Who's gonna buy this? You got the global audience in mind???? Sure, jan.

giphy

And please!! The audacity she had when she said ''editors around the world'' when in the two shared editorials all the editors involved are either british or american.

They all make me so angry.

They are spreading themselves way too thin.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

More than collaborating together it is about forcing the American vision to all the Vogue editions but sure. All Vogue editions used to share the same value of being THE fashion magazine showcasing the best and most luxurious clothes with the top-tier creatives in the industry.

Now it is about Lourdes doing some mimes at the Vogue office and Kerby whatever his name posing like he is the designer of the century.

 

[Flamingjune]

How did I miss this? Didn't know Farnetti was leaving as well. It's about time. And this was published two weeks ago.
Vogue Italia Editor Emanuele Farneti Exits Amid Consolidation

 

[MagFan]

^ we have separate thread for this Emanuele Farneti Departs Vogue Italia as EIC enjoy!

 

[Xone]

These global editorials or contents will only satisfy CN in a monetary way. and will be only available for big brands or conglomerates, so the smaller and less richer brands have to conform to appear only in lame articles or must have lists??. I understand the business is changing but do it in a smart way. So embarrassing and stupid way to fool themselves.This is not about the audience or whatever they want to disguise it. and HB did it before with Carine and it didn't work. But a country is very different from the other even if both are in the same continent..

But in the end it's their business and what they are doing is making the competitors stronger because if you buy 4 different Vogue's a month now you only need one and that's it. So now the commercial pages on the magazine will be more relevant because they gonna show the products more relevant for their market. But the editorial point of view will be global....

Let's the games begins...

 

[8eight]

Magazines and editors need to stop posting all the magazine editorials on instagram. Leave me some mystery and surprise for when i go and spend five pounds on your product.

 

[LoveFashion25]

Magazines and editors need to stop posting all the magazine editorials on instagram. Leave me some mystery and surprise for when i go and spend five pounds on your product.

They really want all the hype but does it really translate to sales?

 

[WinstonH20]

Guys, I have two questions regarding this new 'global Vogue' strategy that Condé is taking, if anyone knows:

1. In terms of the big 4, will each edition produce at least one unique editorial(s)? Will this be the cover ed more often than not?

2. Without editors-in-chief at VI and VP, who will decide the cover stars of these editions? Edward and/or Anna? Or the person appointed to 'oversee' these editions?

If anyone knows or can take an educated guess, please let me know

 

[tigerrouge]

Magazines have been on a slide for a long time now, and despite the not-inconsiderable money being paid to the decision-makers, it's clear that no-one has come up with any strategy, other than to go with the crowd-sourced flow, and to dress up each stage of cost-cutting as something that's part of a larger plan.

Whatever genius came up with the theme of sunrise - nearly every image of a sunrise could also be seen as a sunset, which is far more apt for the September covers. Sunset over September. That's what we're seeing.

The magazine world - and probably fashion in general - is currently sorely lacking in visionaries and iconoclasts who can see beyond the moment and dare to set out an alternative.

It's human nature to be convinced that today, we're all more clever and correct than we ever were before. That is, until you add some perspective, and realise that every day in history was a 'today' where people thought the same thing, but looking back, we can see how wrong they were.

Decades ago, we can see how some very damaging products and beliefs were successfully marketed to us by people who should have taken some responsibility for the message, but keeping their jobs and lining their pockets mattered more.

Well, that's us today. It's also happening right now. People are going to be looking back at us in the 2020s and thinking that we're as stupid as everyone else in the past. Because why else would we have thought that certain habits were healthy, that certain people were worth listening to, and that issues X, Y and Z were the most important topics of the day?

And magazines from the current moment are going to record every moment of that short-sightedness in excruciating detail. That's their main purpose now.

 

[Deleted member 141309]

Absolutely agree. I am not sure how it translates to some people, but for me it does evoke certain thoughts right away that. Honestly, at this point I am already thinking how many damaging habits we have all around being in society, social media and so on. I am not going to name these, because it would probably trigger 70% of the members.

As people love to sh*t on boomers, it look right as we see what these people are doing at Conde Nast. I find it amusing how people think that they support or care about fashion at all, same as SJW with all the diversity and inclusivity - they don't give a f*ck, they just want a broader audience to appeal to, cause a discussion and stuff their pockets even more, same goes with conglomerates. Even my own father is that way - find the quickest and cheapest way to make a buck, without regard for quality, what I find revolting (that is exactly why we don't discuss work, ever). On the other hand, a lot of people don't give kudos to Generation X, as I think. Those born from early 1960 to current millennials, who have yet to get experience. My mother is from that generation, and she, trust me, the person to value both quality and artistry (after all, it was her introducing me to Dior and McQueen when I was about 10 y.o.). She is the person who taught me quality and art does not have to compromise each other, and that is precisely why I grew up such a b*tch in some regards.


It is clear as a day - it is much, much cheaper to appeal to younger ones and woke ones. It costs way less money to get newer faces to be both diverse and appear friendlier and do inclusivity at lower cost, than to invite Naomi, Kate, Gisele, Tao, and Liu for group editorials and covers like it was til about 2013-2014, before social media exploded so much. Same goes for celebrities now, all this Global initiative, Vogue Values, smaller editions, going digital instead of printing, hiring new artists instead of going M&M, Meisel and I&V galore, and so on. Even in those deeper layers - it is cheaper to get Meisel studio shoot rather than a location editorial, and the rest too. The production costs have gone crazy.

What I must say good about Farneti, the M&M CGI cover was a true eye-opener. I mean, CGI models in an M&M shoot in 2021. I haven't seen that much before, it is truly going with the times and pushes the boundary - it is quite experimental and it would be silly to deny that. He is not a conceptual genius and I despise his low-taste approach, but in some way he did follow Franca - he pushed things and got them so ridiculous, look at us ALL still fuming over his tenure at Vogue Italia. A good one? No. A never-before-seen-one? For sure.

But now... The future seems dark, even if true money goes global and we get one Vogue for all translated. I am especially sorry for Europe and Asia with so many countries, areas, where cultural idiosyncrasies matter a lot. There is no way you can account for that with this initiative. I remember recently reading about Karlies Kloss by Testino Asian-inspired editorial and how it aged not well, and, truly, I disagree. Appropriation is bad and one thing, but cultural exchange is another and it was vital. Call me a bigot, an idiot, and so on, but I truly miss the times Meisel making models in Geisha-inspired looks, or that infamous Lara by Klein ed where her face was painted black. It provoked and pushed, and while not in the sensitive ways, I wish it was just adapted for today, but not erased. I do not feel the cultural exchange anymore, only segregation.

Yes, I can see and look at Vogue Japan, but I can't read a single thing, I cannot get past many barriers to understand and learn, while at that time I could. And with smaller magazines suffering too or going the blogger way... This is a scary time for fashion. I am sure it will pass and in 5 years we are going to look here and probably chuckle, but we are here now and it does not feel inspiring.

Even on this forum, we are in a rut of discussing and arguing over anything but fashion discussions beyond the very surface level and artistry, even the majority of our commentary is nearly machine-like: we see Prada - we sh*t on it in one-liners, we see a Meisel shoot with minimal effort - we say "amazing' and move on, there is nothing to analyse anymore, nothing to think over.

 

[DK92]

So, it's official... Couldn't they get another publisher?!

 

[GivenchyAddict]

^10 years of totally forgettable issues. To this day, I have no idea what was their fashion. You know exactly with a US Vogue, UK, VP even with Vogue Portugal but them, nothing.

 

[MON]

So, it's official... Couldn't they get another publisher?!

They could, but CN chose not to. The shift to globalization means sacking editors or killing an edition (as in this case)

 

[axiomatic]

The pay-for-play scandal behind many sexy Maxim, Playboy ‘covers’

Any woman can be a magazine cover girl these days — if she’s willing to pony up the dough.

Juliet Amelia, a 45-year-old licensed massage therapist from Florida, looked like the hottest model around when she suddenly appeared on eight Playboy international editions — including Playboy Sweden, Playboy South Africa and Playboy New Zealand — during a 12-month period from 2018 to 2019.

Amelia — who now sells copies of these covers as well as other “uncensored images” on her website — also was splashed on the front page of British men’s magazine FHM in South Africa and Australia during the same period.

“Not even Pamela Anderson was on as many covers,” said Johnny Kortis, former editor and publisher of Playboy Slovakia.

Kortis claims Amelia would have added Playboy Slovakia to her collection except for the fact that he turned down a $10,000 offer by a photographer.

Playboy Slovakia is not for sale, said Kortis, who claims the practice was so rampant when he was running the magazine that he complained to headquarters, saying it was watering down the brand.

Playboy, which now only runs content online after dropping its print version last year, said it prohibits models from paying to appear in the magazine founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953.

“Playboy Enterprises does not condone the practice of charging models to be in our pages or those of our international editions,” said a Playboy spokeswoman. “This practice is counter to Playboy’s brand standards. We urge any model who has been approached to make us aware of the situation.”

Amelia didn’t return requests for comment.

Magazine covers are still jealously guarded terrain for editors of most US publications. But they are increasingly “for sale” in a shadowy overseas market where wannabe pinup girls are promised prime media real estate in exchange for a fee — often as much as $10,000, not including the cost of the wardrobe, makeup, shooting and editing, which is also paid for by the model.

Photographers often broker these transactions — collecting money from eager models and then shopping the glamor shots around to overseas versions of popular men’s magazines, sources said.

“Sometimes you pay the magazine these days and sometimes they do it for free depending on the girl, her social following, her looks and what’s going on in her life,” explained photographer Ryan Dwyer

If the model is the girlfriend of a famous athlete, “they will do it for free,” Dwyer said. “If she’s Lacy the stripper from Vegas, they want to get paid.”

The practice of models paying for placement has blossomed thanks in part to social media sites like Instagram, where all that matters is the appearance of success. A cyber “cover” can help aspiring influencers gain social media followers, which can then lead to forms of revenue, like brand sponsorships.

And with readership in sharp decline, some magazines can no longer afford to finance splashy shoots in exotic locales, or pay big bucks for the publishing rights of an undiscovered beauty.

“I used to get $7,500 for a cover, $3,500 for a spread for five or six pages,” Dwyer explained, referring to the good old days of magazine shoots.

“I used to work and see a random hot girl in a coffee shop. Back then, I’d supply clothes and makeup and hair and pay for it all and then sell it to the magazines. I wasn’t just picking up any girl. I knew I could sell it and that’s how I’d get paid,” he said.

As magazine “budgets started to dwindle,” Dwyer realized he could make more money churning out covers for women willing to pay for the privilege.

“I went from shooting hot girls in London, UK and Rome to plastic-surgery chicks that wanted covers. I downgraded for sure quality-wise but financially [it] was the total opposite,” he said.

“Who doesn’t want to be on a cover of Maxim?” said Kaila Methven, who goes by the name Madame Methven and runs an LA-based lingerie company.

Cover girl for a “special travel edition” of Maxim South Africa in February 2018 and Playboy Mexico later that same year, Methven denies she ever paid for a cover. But the photographer behind her South Africa cover photo says the magazine didn’t hire him — Methven did.

“Her team reached out to me saying they wanted [me] to shoot her,” Irvin Rivera told The Post of Methven, who bills herself as a Kentucky Fried Chicken “heiress” since her family once owned a vast South African chicken farm that was a vendor to KFC.

At the end of the shoot, Methven paid for the photos she liked, including the one that landed her on the Maxim South Africa cover, he said.

Rivera said he wasn’t involved in getting the photo on the cover of the magazine. “She knows someone from there,” he said of Maxim South Africa.

Another model who has graced the cover of Maxim South Africa ended up suing the parent publication, claiming she was duped into a pay-to-play scheme that resulted in her forking over thousands of dollars only to find out she was being placed on “fake” covers.

Russian-born Marina Pahomova, also known as Marina Pamo, claims she was lured into the alleged scheme by photographer Brian B. Hayes, who sold himself online as the exclusive photographer for Maxim Middle East and Maxim South Africa.

“Some magazines … will ONLY publish my photos on their covers,” he allegedly wrote on his Facebook page in 2016. “We are proud to provide FREE submissions for those models who book photoshoots with me.”

Once contracted, Hayes told Pahomova she would need to pay $2,000 for a photo session so he could present the right kind of photos to Maxim, the lawsuit said.
Hayes then suggested a second photo session so Pahomova could have “other ‘looks’ for the other publications,” costing another $3,000.

After the second photo shoot was over, Hayes allegedly told Pahomova it would cost even more money to get her photos “on the cover and as a feature inside” Maxim magazine.

He directed her to wire $6,000 to his account and told her he was friends with the editor of Maxim South Africa, Dirk Steenekamp. He even sent her a screenshot of an allegedly pre-approved Maxim South Africa cover with Pahomova as the cover model, the lawsuit said.

Pahomova was able to buy print editions of her May 2016 Maxim South Africa magazine cover. But she claims she was also conned into paying her way onto a slew of “fake Maxims” that were allegedly being produced in Muslim countries that had banned the mag from appearing on newsstands.

In her lawsuit, she said she believes Hayes has duped “hundreds” of models over the years, and netted himself over $1.5 million.

“Maxim is defrauding the general public into spending money on purchases of fake Maxims along with defrauding models and commercial advertising that paid for placements in fake Maxims, resulting in damage in the amount of several million dollars,” the lawsuit said.

Maxim didn’t respond to requests for comment.

When The Post called Pahomova last year, she said the suit was settled and abruptly hung up the phone. Maxim appears to have never issued a formal response to the lawsuit, which was settled in February 2020, court records show.

Neither Steenekamp nor Hayes returned requests for comment about Pahomova’s claims. But in the settlement, Hayes also acknowledged that he charged her $6,000 for her Maxim cover and he gave her back the rights to the 2,000 photos he took of her.

Pahomova, meanwhile, was fined by the judge for not showing up to depositions, legal papers show.

The practice of paying for covers is condemned by the American Society of Magazine Editors, which boasts members from the nation’s top glossy magazines.

“ASME’s position on covers for sale — on any content — is: Don’t deceive the reader,” said Sid Hold, CEO of the trade association.

Of course, many covers nowadays live only in the cyber world with no magazine pages behind them and therefore no readers to deceive. Models are often posing for nothing more than a digital mockup with the magazine’s logo, headline and model that they can post on social media, sources said.

Photographer Joel Alvarez outed this practice in 2019 when he railed on Facebook against a “mock cover” he claims he shot for Maxim France under then-owner Florent Carmin.

“Even though Maxim France never actually went into circulation it’s still nice to see my work on a mock cover,” Alvarez wrote. “But I’ve noticed a lot of [people] posting and even believing that Maxim France is an actual publication.”

Alvarez — known for his 2017 Black Tape Project, featuring beautiful women dressed in outfits made of skimpy, strategically placed strips of electrical tape — attached to his Facebook screed a Maxim France cover of fitness model Paige Munroe wearing a gold version of his electric-tape “bikinis.”

The bare-bones cover offers little more than a picture of Munroe, who boasts 102,000 Instagram followers, with a headline in French that translates roughly to: “The bombshell is the type to be respected.” The cover doesn’t even have a date.

Munroe told The Post she didn’t pay for her cover and was stunned when The Post informed her that there may have been no magazine pages behind it. She said she did the photo shoot in LA with Alvarez and Carmin, believing it was for a print edition of the mag.

“I’ve never paid for a publication in my life. If someone paid for something for me, I was not aware of that, nor would I ask them to do that,” Munroe said. The Maxim France “cover” was removed from Munroe’s Instagram page after The Post contacted her.

Carmin responded to Alvarez’s Facebook post by threatening legal action. “Kindly remove that post of [sic] your page,” he wrote, “or lawsuit will be filed.”

But when reached by The Post, Carmin said he is no longer in charge of Maxim France after getting heat from Maxim USA over the way he was running the business. He said his problems with the home office began shortly after The Post began contacting Maxim US with questions about his operation back in 2020.

In an interview, Carmin acknowledged that he did “very few” print editions of the magazine after landing the Maxim France license in 2018. He said he did lots of “digital covers,” often producing several “covers” in a single month.

Carmin also insisted he never took money directly from models to appear on his cyber covers. He only acknowledged being paid by “sponsors” of models.

In the case of Munroe, Carmin said he did the shoot as a “favor” to Alvarez, not in exchange for money.

While the pay-for-play model of magazine covers can be exploitative, some women walk away feeling richer than ever — as was the case for Santa Monica-based fitness buff Bella Baez, who appeared on Maxim New Zealand’s cover in 2019.

The California native said she paid $12,000 to be featured on the cover and an inside spread that included an inspiring Q&A about “a broken heart,” and how it led her to get in the best shape of her life and compete in Miss Bikini competitions.

She said she paid $2,000 for the photo shoot with Hayes, the photographer named in the Pahomova suit. Another $10,000 was “for Maxim to get published and to get a page spread.”

And she doesn’t regret it for a second.

One reason is that it was cathartic. To pay for the cover and spread, Baez sold Chanel bags she got from the same ex-fiancé who sent her spiraling into depression after they broke up in 2016.

“It’s just materialistic things,” she said of the designer bags. “I wanted to share my story and I wanted to inspire people so that, to me, is worth more than a single bag.”