The Business of Magazines

[tarsha]

Rumor: Alex White Leaves W

We just got a tip from a very reliable source that W‘s revered fashion director Alex White resigned this afternoon. According to the source, White has left to focus on freelance projects.

If it’s true it’s shocking news, and a shame. White has been at W since 1994 and stuck around through all the recent changes at the high fashion glossy–namely the installment of Stefano Tonchi as EIC and she just launched the delightful blog Alex White Edits (though it hasn’t been updated since February 1).

We’ve reached out to W for confirmation and will update with any news. If you know anything write to us at [email protected].

fashionista

 

[kimair]

Less than a month after Vogue style director Alexandra Kotur departed for Town & Country, contributing fashion editor Edward Enninful is heading to W to take over Alex White’s post as fashion and style director. White, who has been with the title for 16 years while working extensively as a stylist and creative director on the side, has stepped down to focus on her own projects.

“I’m very, very happy that she stayed on board and that she didn’t leave when Dennis [Freedman] left,” W’s editor in chief Stefano Tonchi said. “I think she lived through these very difficult months and delivered great fashion and great stories.”

Before Condé Nast hired Tonchi to lead W last March, there were rumors that White was lobbying heavily for the top job at the magazine and even asked Karl Lagerfeld to write a letter of endorsement to company chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. But Tonchi said he and White never had problems working together. “I think there are always so many gossips and so much talk that I don’t pay much attention. I don’t know if she did or if she didn’t,” Tonchi said. “It was her right to try to get this job. I think that was not against me, that was just something she tried to get for herself.”

According to Tonchi, he kept in close touch with White over the last year about whether she wanted to stay at the magazine, and ultimately the decision for her to leave was mutual. “She’s thinking very much about her own brand — the Alex White brand — and at a certain point that’s no longer what W is about,” he added.

“Totally on the same page,” White told WWD. “I helped with getting over the hump. Now it’s time for me to continue my freelance and explore the other things I’m working on,” including digital projects.

Tonchi indicated White is thinking about starting a magazine of her own, possibly online.

He announced the latest change during a production meeting in the magazine’s offices at 1166 Avenue of the Americas on Tuesday morning. Enninful and White were not present. One source at the magazine explained that White had a consistently full slate of side work with two small children and was often out of the office.

“Now I’m going to be focusing my editorial prowess on W,” Enninful said. His engagements as a freelance stylist for American and Italian Vogue, where he’s worked for more than a decade, are coming to an end. “Whenever a relationship ends it’s very sad,” he said.

Enninful said he likes the new direction of W under Tonchi and called the magazine a “great American institution and a great fashion institution.” “Pop culture, fashion, society — W is the original place for that,” he continued.

White was one of the last vestiges of the old guard at W, and with her departure the top tier of the masthead has completely turned over since Tonchi’s appointment. Beauty director Jane Larkworthy and senior editors Diane Solway and Jenny Comita are the highest-ranked editorial staffers remaining from the Patrick McCarthy era. McCarthy is the former chairman and editorial director of W.

With the addition of Enninful, whose family comes from Ghana, the W masthead is looking increasingly like the United Nations General Assembly, with delegates from Italy (Tonchi), Cuba (creative director Alex Gonzalez) and Colombia (features director Armand Limnander). Tonchi spoke highly of Enninful’s international background and his roots in independent fashion publishing. He began at i-D magazine in the U.K. as a teenager, before going on to work as a stylist for Vogues around the world. Tonchi said that Enninful will also be a great match for the new mood at the magazine.

“I was interested in his talent, but more than anything, the spirit of Edward,” Tonchi said. “Edward is a very positive, open, sunny person. He really captured my imagination.”

Tonchi and Enninful were seated next to each other at dinner for Balenciaga designer Nicola Ghesquière during Paris fashion week earlier this year, and they hit it off. “I didn’t really think about hiring him, I just thought he was incredibly joyful,” Tonchi added. They began discussing a job at the magazine earlier this month and talks moved forward quickly from there. Enninful’s first day is May 1.

Assistant managing editor Carl Germann is also leaving W to take over as managing editor of Martha Stewart Living.

wwd / april 27, 2011

 

[nyc_art_style]

Alex White's work partly defines what W Magazine is for me. So to see her leave is definitely an end of an era.

However Edward is a great replacement, as he's just as strong a stylist and visionary. But I'm worried about how the other magazines he contributes to will cope. The article stated he'll no longer work for Vogue Italia or US. That's a hard hit, (Edward's work for Vogue Italia especially is something I always look forward to) but those mags will do fine.

But what about i-D? The article stated nothing about it, (except that Edward started his career there). I hope he doesn't leave i-D. Edward is as crucial to i-D as Alex White was to W. However I don't know if i-D can go on in the same capacity without Edward.

 

[Fiercification]

This is a big surprise and quite interesting...I personally think it's no loss to VI as his best stories were those with Meisel; recently he hasn't been up to much memorable. US Vogue has Camilla and Marie-Amelie, so there's no loss in the edge factor. Ultimately it's i-D that looses out.

 

[envogueforever]

I think he'll be keeping his fashion director position at I-D. Look at Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, she was fashion/creative director of UK Harper's Bazaar as well as editing her two mags, 10 and 10MEN. She only lasted a couple of months though (due to her massive load of work I presume).

 

[tigerrouge]

A mention of one magazine that seems to have no trouble attracting advertisers at the moment... (guardian.co.uk

China's taste for high-end fashion and luxury brands reaches new heights

Vogue China editions the size of a doorstop, 960,000 millionaires and rising, and now the aspirational class are buying.

Angelica Cheung, the Chanel-frocked editor of Vogue China, has a problem her counterparts would sell their designer wardrobes for: too much advertising to fit in the glossy.

"I have to sit down at a desk to flip through it," she says. "It is going to get very difficult to read. It's too heavy. Maybe it will have to be two magazines in future."

In the US, Vogue's chunky September issue is fashion's lodestar; so successful it spawned its own documentary. In China every month's edition is a glossy, advert-packed, doorstopper: testament to the explosion of the high-end fashion industry.

As the latest Hurun wealth report logs 960,000 millionaires in China, the expanding ranks of the super-rich are seeking ways to confirm their status and indulge a newfound taste for consumption.

High-end brands are happy to assist. The ubiquitous Louis Vuitton boutiques have been joined by Loewe and Balmain. Burberry plans to expand from 57 to 100 stores within five years. Hermès has even launched its own China-specific sub-brand, Shang Xia.

The management consultancy McKinsey predicts that, as middle-class consumers acquire the designer habit too, within four years China will become the world's largest luxury market, worth $27bn (£16bn), up from $10bn in 2009. .

Add in purchases overseas, by Chinese tourists avoiding the country's sky-high luxury taxes, and the figures are staggering. Chinese consumers will buy more than 44% of the world's luxury goods by 2020, forecasts CLSA Asia-Pacific, the brokerage and investment group.

That ratio is all the more remarkable given that high-end brands emerged only in the 1990s. Cheung says Vogue China requires more "education" pages than its sister titles, to make up for the missing years and unravel the western references. "In China [the 1960s] was the Cultural Revolution. You need to explain swinging London, Mary Quant, the Beatles and why these people made a difference. If you don't explain, they're just clothes."

Certainly, the fashion industry is putting down roots in popular culture. China has its own Project Runway – called Creative Sky, with Cheung as a judge. And it has its own take on The Devil Wears Prada, with the fashion romance Colour Me Love.

Even now fewer than 2% of the population buys top-end brands, says Zhu Mingxia of Beijing's University of International Business and Economics. "The next decade will be the golden era for luxury."

Beauty products and accessories account for a much larger slice of the market than in the west, and more of the customers are male; according to the American accessories marketer Coach Retail International, men account for 45% of China's $1.2bn luxury handbag market.

Prada shoulder bags and Gucci clutches are essential props for many businessmen. And if they are not carrying their own status symbol, young men may wield one on behalf of a girlfriend.

Buying a partner an expensive handbag establishes you as husband material; carrying it for her is also appreciated, so it is not uncommon to see burly young men gallantly toting pink or diamante-studded bags.

Many of these new consumers are executives and entrepreneurs, keen to show they have made it, or the offspring of wealthy families. Others, however, are the aspirational: "Secretaries who live on instant noodles for six months to pay for their LV handbag ... it's a way of saying, 'I have become part of this world,' " said Paul French of the retail consultancy Access Asia.

Cynics joke that "the three Cs – the corrupt, the criminal and the concubines" are among the heaviest spenders. A gold watch or expensive handbag not only show appreciation to a helpful official or acquiescent mistress; they are also tradable assets and less traceable than cash.

Brands see they must fight to retain an aura, justifying their price tags as their popularity increases.

Shops are springing up not only in Beijing and Shanghai, but also in unglamorous provincial cities such as Hefei and Shijiazhuang. With minimal rents (developers believe prestige brands attract other clients), there is little to stop their relentless multiplication, even when customers are thin on the ground.

"Every mall in Beijing has a Versace, and every year there's another mall," said Miao Wong, managing director of a record company, as she eyed the designer-clad crowd at a recent Burberry party in the capital. Two or three years ago she too shopped for high-end, western labels; these days she prefers local designers such as Vega Wang.

She may be rare among her peers, but officials also appear to think fashion is better when it keeps a lower profile. Beijing recently banned billboards promoting "hedonistic and high-end lifestyles", underlining concern about overt displays of wealth in an increasingly unequal society.

One day later a minister indicated plans to cut luxury taxes. The message to brands and customers alike: consumption is fine, just don't make it too conspicuous.

 

[Bertrando3]

What an interesting article! I didn't know any of that in China, thanks for sharing

 

[MON]

Well that just proves that Vogue China is not flopping and is here to stay

 

[tarsha]

Charlotte Stockdale Headed To i-D

Edward Enninful, who left contributing fashion editor gigs at Vogue and Vogue Italia behind this month to become W's new fashion and style director, has also exited his position as fashion director at i-D, which he has held since 1991, when he was 18. His replacement is reportedly the stylist Charlotte Stockdale, who has worked with i-D in the past and whose clients have ranged from Fendi to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Enninful's first issue for W, meanwhile, will be the September 2011 issue.

fashionologie

 

[nyc_art_style]

Edward Enninful, who left contributing fashion editor gigs at Vogue and Vogue Italia behind this month to become W's new fashion and style director, has also exited his position as fashion director at i-D, which he has held since 1991, when he was 18.

Thus, I'm officially heart broken.

Oh well. I'll be even more excited for W each month, and good luck to Charlotte. She's talented enough to do an outstanding job at i-D.

 

[tarsha]

By the Numbers: Ad Page Sales Mixed

During the first half, only two men’s titles posted ad page declines and they both happen to be published by Condé Nast. GQ’s ad pages slipped 3 percent to 485, although the monthly did report the most total ad pages for the period in the category. Details finished the period down 2.8 percent to 311 pages, according to Media Industry Newsletter. Over at Hearst Magazines, Esquire reported ad pages up 12.5 percent to 410. Rounding out the category, Men’s Health rose 4 percent to 377 pages and Men’s Journal posted a 5 percent increase to 353 pages.

Among lifestyle magazines, Vanity Fair had the biggest increase, up 6.5 percent to 650 pages. O, The Oprah Magazine posted a 3.8 percent rise in paging to 671, and Martha Stewart Living, which just hired new editor in chief Pilar Guzman, was up 2 percent to 507 pages. The category leader had a tougher time, though: Time Inc.’s Real Simple fell 6.6 percent to 688 pages. More was down 3.3 percent to 401 pages and Redbook reported a 1.6 percent decrease in ad pages to 635.

For core fashion titles, Harper’s Bazaar, which just hired new publisher Carol Smith, finished the first half down 5.4 percent to 712 pages. In contrast, Elle (soon to join Hearst) posted the largest increase in the category, up 15 percent to 1,082 pages. Vogue reported an 11 percent rise to 1,094 pages, while InStyle was up 4.7 percent to 1,156 pages (the most ad pages for any fashion title). W finished the half up 5 percent to 440 pages.

wwd.com

 

[tarsha]

Dasha Zhukova Confirms She's Launching a New Magazine

There have been rumors circulating in the last couple of months that Dasha Zhukova — since resigning from POP last November — was working on a new magazine. Now, she confirms the rumors are true.
Dubbed Garage (the same as her flagship Moscow museum, the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture), it's set to launch in September and will be an art magazine with a strong fashion angle. "It's going to be a girls' magazine," Zhukova says. "I have more ideas than I know what to do with. I guess I'm a bit of a fantasist and a daydreamer — all sorts of things come to me during the day."
She's also enlisted former Vogue Paris editor Joan Juliet Buck as a consultant for the magazine, as well as Vanessa Traina. "I'll set projects up and hand them over," Zhukova explains. "I'm a delegator and I find that quite easy. I feel I do it intuitively. But I have to trust that the people I work with are going to make decisions I approve of."

fashionologie

 

[tarsha]

Is Glenda Bailey Leaving Harper’s Bazaar?

There was a gossipy little item in this morning’s WWD suggesting Glenda Bailey is about to resign from Harper’s Bazaar. “Perhaps Harper’s Bazaar’s Glenda Bailey is on the way out?” writes reporter Zeke Turner. “She has a new counterpart on the business side, hard-charging Carol Smith, who can’t be happy with the magazine’s current numbers and will want to turn the magazine around right off the bat.”

We’ve heard similar rumors, but dismissed them as pure gossip. Turner does go on to cite an unnamed Bazaar source who reiterates that notion: “Glenda rumors come all the time, it’s just like the boy who cries wolf,” the source told WWD. “For the past two years, there have been Glenda rumors.”

We reached out to a Bazaar spokesperson for comment, and she said, “We don’t speculate on rumor, especially when it’s from unnamed sources.”

But as the Hearst-Hachette deal comes to fruition, there’s bound to be some major shakeups at the tower. So stay tuned.

fashionista

 

[mikel]

Bazaar is in dire need of a change. Hope the rumour turns out to be true.

 

[Deleted member 45369]

I think we will all rejoice when Glenda finally gets the boot. It's hard to imagine anybody drilling Bazaar into a deeper hole. It can only go up.

 

[tigerrouge]

US Glamour editor aims for Lively sales... (wwd.com

Glamour Magazine Off to a Bumpy Start in 2011

Cindi Leive’s Glamour has gotten off to a bumpy start in 2011. Condé Nast’s cash cow has dropped 17 percent off newsstand sales through the first four months of the year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Rapid Report.

For a magazine that sells at the high volume that it does — it is Condé Nast’s best seller off the newsstand — the drop is not an insignificant one. In all, with its $3.99 newsstand price, Glamour is off about $1.5 million in newsstand revenue alone for the first third of the year.

Last year, the monthly sold an average of 550,900 copies through the first four months of the year; this year it has averaged 459,000. May and June numbers have not yet been released — a Glamour spokeswoman declined to give WWD internal stats — but May is likely to be off significantly as well. Last year, Glamour had its best-selling issue of the year in May when it sold 675,000 copies with Lauren Conrad on the cover. (A spokeswoman did say, however, that June projects to sell about 5 percent better than last year’s June issue.)

Leive said the newsstand drop is “no secret” and her editorial team is “1,000 percent focused on it.” They had a big off-site meeting to try to wrap their heads around it, she said.

“We are a huge magazine and we’re a huge business,” Leive said. “But let’s be honest, you don’t stay on top without turning up the heat occasionally. Right now, it’s all about the newsstand.”

This year, Glamour’s cover subjects have been Reese Witherspoon, Kim Kardashian, Diane Kruger, Kate Winslet, Emma Stone and Olivia Wilde. Leive said there’s been a lot more focus in the last few weeks on who to book for the cover, how to style them, how to lay out the cover and what type of stories to blurb on it.

“We’re looking at the sales for the first couple months of this year and we’re thinking, ‘Geez, we’ve got to fight even harder to keep these girls,’” she said. “It’s the classic thing. A girl has 1.7 seconds at the newsstand to make her decision about your magazine. Are we using that 1.7 seconds as well as we should? If we need to do that more ferociously and with different people and different topics, then we will.”

Glamour isn’t alone in its newsstand travails either. Other fashion magazines have had a mixed year as well. Through the first four months of the year, Vogue is up an impressive 20 percent; Cosmopolitan is up slightly in the single-digit percentage points, and Elle is down roughly 7 percent. Then there are those whose data have been released only for the first three months of the year: InStyle is also slightly up in single-digit percentage points, while Marie Claire and Harper’s Bazaar — magazines whose newsstand sales combined are still less than one average Glamour issue on the newsstand — are down 17 percent and 29 percent, respectively, according to ABC data (the Rapid Report provides data provided by publishers and has not yet been audited by ABC).

For the July issue, which is on newsstands now, Leive put Blake Lively on the cover, and there are high hopes for that to kick off a turnaround.

“If you look at what works for us, it’s not the same stuff that used to work for us,” said Leive. “My top seller of last year was Lauren Conrad. My top seller this year is Kim Kardashian. Although I have hopes that Blake Lively’s nude picture scandal will put her over the edge. Just kidding, Blake.”

But then again.…

 

[tigerrouge]

General US newsstand performance (foliomag.com

Newsstand Sales Down 6 Percent in First Quarter

Newsstand research and data firm MagNet has released first quarter 2011 retail sales numbers and revenues are slightly down. Sales for the quarter totaled $987 million, down almost 6 percent from same period last year, which recorded just over $1.04 billion in retail sales. The data company cites high gas prices as a major factor for the quarter's slump.

Major news events, such as the royal wedding and Bin Laden's death, says MagNet, are predicted to help shore up second quarter numbers. For example, MagNet is forecasting People's royal wedding coverage to add approximately $4 million to its retail sales.

Likewise, TIME's Bin Laden cover should max out at three to four times its normal newsstand sales for the issue, predicts MagNet. Time Inc. tripled its print order for the edition and it was pumped into an additional 20,000 stores-all of which could mean another $1.5 million in retail sales for the magazine.

The celebrity category maintained its best-selling position with 23.5 percent share of total sales for the first quarter, accounting for $232 million. Celebrity titles, however, dropped 8.5 percent in share of market, per MagNet. Gainers include Food/Wine (3 percent), Home (8 percent) and Home/Garden (3 percent). Combined, these three categories represent 12.5 percent of retail dollars.

 

[Miss Dalloway]

Surprising exit at UK Vogue;

After 17 years I have decided to leave VOGUE. Times of change and time for a change. New projects beckon....Exciting things ahead

@robinderrick

 

[mikel]

^He is the art director right? So that means a new look is in store for UK Vogue.

 

[vogue28]

British Vogue has been steering towards mediocre for months now. So I'm seeing Derrick's departure as positive. I can't remember which issue their recent sort of re-launch was, but I wasn't impressed. Sections were placed elsewhere and they changed fonts. Nothing spectacular or visually appealing. Fingers crossed that a slick vision becomes injected into the magazine.