The Business of Magazines

[Xone]

Earlier this month, Anna and Edward discussed digital transformation, sustainability and diversity and their impact on Vogue/Condé Nast's strategy moving forward:

I just got the courage to watch the video.....Edward alone looks very secure, but next to Anna he looks like nothing...Agree about the bucket hat, maybe he got capillary transplant, is it possible? bc he wore that hat all Fashion Month i think....

The moderator/interviews did a bad job, lame question, didn't bring nothing new to the table, that's why Anna and her assistant were able to gave those staged answers....so fake was everything....all bs answers....

 

[tigerrouge]

I subscribe to UK Bazaar, and just received an email confirming changes to the publishing schedule:

I’m writing to let you know about some changes to your Harper’s Bazaar subscription. From this month, Harper’s Bazaar will be published 10 times a year, with a combined December-January winter issue, which you received in early November, and a combined July-August summer issue published in June.

 

[axiomatic]

NYT interview with Anna Wintour.

Condé Nast Knows Faded Glory Is Not in Style

Condé Nast’s new strategy is deeply rooted in the financial headwinds the company is facing. Mr. Lynch says the plan is working, and shared new numbers to prove it. The company will break even in 2021, a year ahead of schedule, he said, and is on track to be profitable by 2023. This was partly driven by a spike in digital advertising revenue, which grew 56 percent year-over-year in the third quarter this year, he added.

According to a person familiar with the financial details of the company, U.S. revenue is expected to exceed $1 billion this year, up nearly $150 million from the previous year. Mr. Lynch said his plan included a 25 percent increase in investment in journalism and content production.

Ms. Wintour is also ensuring that there are unlikely to be any more Anna Wintours — no more imperial editors in chief each with their own fiefs, a job Ms. Wintour herself helped create as a stylish but exacting gatekeeper of fashion and culture. The brands are now run by “global editorial directors,” most of whom are based in New York, with regional heads of content reporting to them.

“Before, you created stories for publication and it came out once a month and that was great,” she said, describing the old domain of an editor in chief. Now the global editorial directors and heads of content are working across platforms that include “digital, video, short and long form, social, events, philanthropic endeavors, membership, consumer, e-commerce,” Ms. Wintour said.

“You touch so many different worlds,” she added. “Honestly, who wouldn’t want that job?”

In the midst of the change at Condé Nast, plenty of people decided they didn’t.

A parade of veteran Condé Nast editors in chief have departed the company in the past 12 months, including Vogue Paris’s Emmanuelle Alt (10 years), Vogue China’s Angelica Cheung (16 years), Vogue Germany’s Christiane Arp (17 years) and British GQ’s Dylan Jones (22 years). Michelle Lee of Allure and Whembley Sewell of Them, an L.G.B.T.Q.-focused website, both went to jobs at Netflix. Lindsay Peoples Wagner, the editor in chief of Teen Vogue and a rising star in the company, left in January for New York Magazine’s The Cut.

“We have nothing but great respect for the editors that have worked with us for many years,” Ms. Wintour said when asked about the mass exodus. “Some of them decided to move on and weren’t as comfortable with the transition as some of the others, but we — you know, it is time to change the company and to have modern thinking.”

 

[WinstonH20]

Thanks so much for sharing @axiomatic , such an interesting read! After reading the entire article, I'm kind of conflicted.

On the one hand, I'm actually glad to hear that Condé Nast will break even and is on track to finally make a profit after all these years of losing money. As much as I drag the company, I do want it to be able to survive in the digital era in some capacity. I still want a legacy magazine (and brand) like Vogue to exist in this new digital era.

On the other hand, I think this global strategy which seems to be working (in terms of revenue) is obviously coming at the cost of quality and I'm worried about its sustainability. While Vogue and its global editions may be getting loads of engagement in the form of likes and reshares on social media, I can say that as someone who used to be a loyal subscriber to American Vogue and who actually cares about the magazine, it is no longer relevant to me or people like me (and many on tFS). The imagery and image-makers are sub-par, the articles are nothing I can't read online and the quality of writing leaves a lot to be desired. Without the magazine itself maintaining a sense of prestige and exclusivity, Vogue really does become nothing more than an online fashion content generator, but maybe that's the goal? Anna mentioned that Condé is now involved with “digital, video, short and long form, social, events, philanthropic endeavors, membership, consumer [and] e-commerce”, but how on Earth can it do all these things well? What's the saying? A jack of all trades, master of none.

Janice Min's thoughts basically sum up my fears:
“I think without the whiff of elitism, that sort of old-school top-down approach to telling the world what to wear and think, Condé Nast runs the risk of becoming just another white-label content farm on the web...”

 

[WinstonH20]

Just thinking more about this, Vogue used to be the authority on fashion. Part of its appeal was that it was a curated magazine that featured writers, editors and photographers who were far more knowledgeable about fashion and talented in presenting it than I was. These people told readers what was in, what was out, what was good what was bad and allowed readers to dream about the infinite possibilities that clothes presented us with in our daily lives through its spectacular imagery. Now, did I need Vogue to tell me what the latest trends of the season were? No, but I loved to hear the views of a roster of talented and knowledgeable contributors.

Fashion is exclusive by nature. The great fashion critic Heidi Klum once said "In fashion, one day you're in, the next you're out". The problem is that Vogue has ceded its own authority in the name of inclusivity and now presents us with a magazine where every celebrity is an icon, every brand and designer is great, every photographer can contribute, all stylists have good taste and everyone gets gold medals for participation at the end of the day. This is an issue that goes far beyond Vogue and Condé Nast, one only needs to look at the sorry state of fashion criticism in recent years to see this. So many people are afraid to say what they really think and so many people have been bought by the large conglomerates (professionalism counts too, so don't mention Louis Pisano as an arbiter of truth in contemporary fashion). Did Vogue and other gatekeepers of fashion always get it right? Not at all, and they've rightly acknowledged their shortcomings when it comes to their record of embracing editors, designers, writers and photographers of colour in their magazines, but instead of actually putting the hard work in to find and cultivate visionary talent from all walks of life (which actually takes time), they've gone the lazy route and simply opened the doors wide open and said "everyone's welcome, everyone is talented".

So where does someone like me go for stimulating commentary on fashion? Well, to The Fashion Spot of course! And even sites like WWD and BoF (sometimes!) provide more interesting commentary and criticism of fashion than a magazine like Vogue does. Of course, there is (and perhaps never will be) a replacement for the spectacular imagery that Vogue used to produce with the likes of Penn, Newton, Meisel, Lindbergh, Testino and Leibovitz. I never needed Vogue before, but I enjoyed its point of view (even in its more mediocre issues) and now that that point of view has been stripped away and the standards have been lowered so far, I instead prefer to get my daily dose of bullsh*t PR-spin (that Vogue seems to be so invested in) directly from designers, brands and celebrities themselves on Instagram.

Am I being too nostalgic and generous to the same Vogue that put Melania Trump on the cover in 2005? Probably, but it's a Sunday and I'm in a reflective mood so forgive my nostalgia rant.

 

[axiomatic]

Vogue’s Edward Enninful to Publish Memoir, ‘A Visible Man,’ in 2022 – WWD

 

[Pooky Lee]

Very interesting discussions about fashion publishing in China: https://chaoyang.substack.com/p/fashion-magazines

 

[8eight]

Vogue UK is £2 in the shops. Big sticker on the cover.

 

[Bertrando3]

This Week in History: The First Edition of Vogue Magazine Published in America
- Nightlife with Philip Clark, Indira Naidoo
Former Australian Vogue EIC, Kirstie Clements, talks about the history of US Vogue, Australian Vogue, the state of the industry etc.

This Week in History: The First Edition of Vogue Magazine Published in America



``Vogue Magazine has been the harbinger of fashion style for over 129 years. On December 17th, 1892, the first edition of Vogue was published in New York. Indira Naidoo flicked through the history of the sartorial elegance Bible with Kirstie Clements, Editor of Vogue Australia, from 1999 – 2012.´´

-

Very interesting you guys, it came out today enjoy

 

[Hafyiez wafa]

 

[Hafyiez wafa]

 

[vogue28]

Tom Usher (formerly at Tatler) is now Hearst UK’s creative director:

 

[caioherrero]

Vogue Japan names Tiffany Godoy as first head of editorial content
Vogue Japan names Tiffany Godoy as first head of editorial content

 

[MON]

Huh? God these appointments are tragic

Good luck with local content

 

[caioherrero]

Huh? God these appointments are tragic

Good luck with local content

An American in Tokyo

 

[Xone]

Vogue Japan names Tiffany Godoy as first head of editorial content
Vogue Japan names Tiffany Godoy as first head of editorial content

well, we know what exactly means HOC now, so what's the fuss?? haha It's funny how they talk like they are named EIC....naive or pretentious? I'm not so sure...

 

[Bernie Flood]

Vogue Japan names Tiffany Godoy as first head of editorial content
Vogue Japan names Tiffany Godoy as first head of editorial content

I still don’t understand this word salad positions

 

[crmsn]

Vogue Philippines is launching this year.
Condé Nast to Launch Vogue Philippines

Vogue Philippines will launch its English-language print, digital and social platforms in September 2022, publisher Condé Nast announced Monday.

“We’re thrilled to launch our 29th edition of Vogue in the Philippines, a country with a growing luxury fashion market and a vibrant creative scene,” said Condé Nast’s managing director of global brand licensing, Markus Grindel.

For the Filipino edition, Condé Nast has partnered with Mega Global Licensing Inc., (MGLI), a local publishing house with over 30 years of experience in the prestige publishing market.

“The Filipino talent has been ready to be received by the world for decades now and with certainty, I can say that the market, too, is finally ready,” said Archie Carrasco, chairman and chief executive of MGLI.

The launch of Vogue Philippines marks a further move for the fashion title into the Southeast Asian market, where it already has editions in Thailand and Singapore.

It also comes at a time of evolution for Vogue. In December 2020, publisher Condé Nast announced a major editorial restructuring that consolidated power in the hands of American Vogue editor Anna Wintour and the year since has seen a number of long-time editors-in-chief of international titles leave their posts in key markets such as China, Japan, the UK, France and Italy.

 

[Hafyiez wafa]

Vogue Philippines is launching this year.
Condé Nast to Launch Vogue Philippines

Vogue Philippines will launch its English-language print, digital and social platforms in September 2022, publisher Condé Nast announced Monday.

“We’re thrilled to launch our 29th edition of Vogue in the Philippines, a country with a growing luxury fashion market and a vibrant creative scene,” said Condé Nast’s managing director of global brand licensing, Markus Grindel.

For the Filipino edition, Condé Nast has partnered with Mega Global Licensing Inc., (MGLI), a local publishing house with over 30 years of experience in the prestige publishing market.

“The Filipino talent has been ready to be received by the world for decades now and with certainty, I can say that the market, too, is finally ready,” said Archie Carrasco, chairman and chief executive of MGLI.

The launch of Vogue Philippines marks a further move for the fashion title into the Southeast Asian market, where it already has editions in Thailand and Singapore.

It also comes at a time of evolution for Vogue. In December 2020, publisher Condé Nast announced a major editorial restructuring that consolidated power in the hands of American Vogue editor Anna Wintour and the year since has seen a number of long-time editors-in-chief of international titles leave their posts in key markets such as China, Japan, the UK, France and Italy.

Will be Launch in September 2022

 

[DK92]

So the cover will be Iselin and Freja by Mikael Jansson right?