The fashion journalism landscape continues to evolve as one of its “fashion bibles” – Women’s Wear Daily – delivers its final daily print issue today.
by Kristina Bustos
illustration by Grace Molteni
“When I was a fashion reporter for a digital media company, I lived by Women’s Wear Daily,” says Channing Hargrove, just two weeks after “the fashion bible” announced it will cease its daily print issues on April 24. The industry newspaper is transitioning to a weekly print edition along with a Digital Daily that will be sent to WWD subscribers via email starting April 29. But WWD reassured its readers in their statement last month that they’re not “discarding daily journalism”—the very backbone of the 105-year-old publication. Instead, they’ll put the focus more on their website, WWD.com, where readers will “see deeper editorial content, more breaking news and more stories around the clock.”
“As a digi-gal, it signifies a change of the guard that advertising dollars are going to the website over the printed paper,” Hargrove adds. “A lot of old school media institutions still have very antiquated views on the separation between print and digital. This shows it may be over soon.”
WWD isn’t the first or last fashion print publication to change the way it delivers its content to readers. As an effort to attract more visitors to their website, Glamour launched their first Google widget in 2009, allowing its users to consume Glamour.com content through iGoogle, opening the magazine to millions of iGoogle users. In 2013, fashion favorite Bullett magazine decided to take a “break” from their print editions, and the reason, according to co-founder Jack Becht, was that print was “expensive” and they’ll use that money for “other platforms.” Bullett currently maintains a robust website covering fashion, art, film and music as well as an e-commerce component called The Bullett Shop.Last year, another fashion front-runner, Vogue,relaunched its website—an effort to solidify its place in the digital arena while competing with the online presence of other fashion magazines like Glamour, InStyle, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and W.
“I believe what WWD has done has lessons in it for all media houses,” says Zandile Blay, a former fashion magazine editor in chief-turned-director of Blay Digital Media and Syracuse University journalism professor. “A response which combines the needs of the business and brand heritage with the demands of your audience is one you can depend on to lead you to the best possible outcome.”
Only time will tell if WWD’s business strategy will produce more subscribers and revenue. WWD certainly has a loyal fan base of fashion enthusiasts, but how far will the newspaper’s rich history and deeply-established title take them when the demand for immediacy on breaking news is high? Hopefully further than Vogue. According to DigiDay, Anna Wintour’s Vogue was late in jumping into the online world, with the first version of Vogue.com launching in 2010. (In comparison, the UK website of InStyle launched three years earlier, and Canada’s Fashion magazine debuted its website in 2000.) Now, Vogue is still feeling the effects: according to comScore’s digital analytics in the fashion and beauty category, its rank among online users is low. But when it comes to average monthly unique visitors, Vogue.com is beating WWD.com by a long shot. Vogue.com had 6 million unique visitors this month compared to 869,000 unique visitors a month for WWD.com. (It should be noted that WWD’s numbers are from 2013-2014, as its media kits have yet to update.) With other fashion magazine websites, Vogue.com also holds its own. “The World’s #1 fashion magazine,” Elle.com snagged 4.6 million monthly unique visitors from July to August 2014, but Glamour.com trumps both Vogue.com and Elle.com as their monthly unique visitors were 8.5 million for August 2014.
“I think InStyle magazine does a really good job at covering fashion in a way that middle America can appreciate but from a really smart point of view,” Hargrove says. Glamour, too! I don’t think Marie Claire is considered a fashion magazine, they may veer more into lifestyle, but the fashion content is strong and so is the actual writing.
Just when it seems fashion journalism is fully transitioning to the online world, the competition gets stiffer with the surge of “freemium” prints. In March, the New York Times called French fashion and beauty magazine Stylist’s free distribution a “successful business model.” That “business model” involved people standing outside Métro stations in Paris, handing out more than 400,000 issues of Stylist every Thursday evening—for free. These circulation numbers are more than the monthly circulation of established fashion magazines, like Vogue Paris, which is under 150,000. Stylist also stands out because it has managed to attract big brands to advertise, such as Lancôme and Dior perfume. The magazine, which is made up of 60 pages of advertisements, has gotten so successful that it is “looking to launch in a new country each year.” Back in the U.S., Marie Claire staffers distributed 30,000 copies of its free pop-up magazine, Branché—a.k.a. the “younger sister of Marie Claire”—with British TV host Alexa Chung as its first cover girl in 2014. The magazine split its 40 pages in half with 20 pages of editorial content and 20 pages of advertisements. This means Branchéwas paid for solely by advertisers. Recently, Marie Claire’s publisher, Hearst, also introduced the free weekly publication TrendingNY. Described as “the free fashion and beauty magazine for millennial New York women,” 50,000 copies of each issue were distributed throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn when it launched back in September and numbers went up to 100,000 for this month’s distribution. What these printed publications show is that no matter how creative or experimental they are, in order to survive today’s publishing landscape, free seems to be way to go.
“Part of the internet’s disruptive stance in the very beginning was that it provided content for free,” Blay explains, naming other free publications in New York, where she lives. “Additional examples of success in this place live right in our own backyard: AM New York, Metro New York and pop-up publications by brands and media houses circulated for free during New York Fashion Week show that—from a business standpoint—it’s a great way to boost circulation and position yourself to build an attractive base for advertisers.”
E-commerce websites are throwing their editorial content into the mix, too. In 2012, popular luxury shopping website Gilt Group launched their online and print fashion magazine, DuJour, and in 2014 saw its competition from fellow e-commerce giant Net-a-Porter when they debuted their own fashion magazine, Porter. This business model is also being followed by start-ups like men’s fashion magazine and online retailer Need, which launched in 2013. Need creates a monthly online publication and selects eight to 12 clothing and accessory items that are sold in limited numbers. Award-winning American fashion designer Tory Burch has a namesake blog that delves into fashion, beauty, arts and entertainment. Menswear brand Frank & Oak takes it further by putting out a quarterly magazine, The Edit, as well as running a company blog called The Hound and a men’s lifestyle magazine called Notes. Simply put, Frank & Oak is “a fashion brand with a publisher’s heart.”
And it’s this kind of private, niche publication that Blay would put her money on.“This may more than likely not be the future of media as we know it—but as a practicing professional, it’s what I feel as a robust, underdeveloped area of our industry—right now,” Blay says.
So what does all this competition mean for fashion magazines, especially for the print world? Let’s not forget the millions of personal style blogs that operate outside of fashion journalism, influencing the fashion industry to change its ways—from less exclusivity to more democratization. And not only are there free printed magazine, there are free digital magazines available all over the globe: New York’s Hint, Melbourne’s Pony Anarchy, London’s Magpie Darling. Will all the options exhaust readers and consumers alike? While it seems more options are popping up every day, those fashion glossies that started it all for fashion lovers are not leaving.
“Print is going nowhere—no matter what trends in the industry may come,” Blay elaborates. “Bottom line—any publication which is actively and innovatively serving its audience will retain its audience and its revenue. To what degree they will is debatable. But ultimately as time will tell—they will.”
As a fashion reporter, reading the printed edition of WWD made Hargrove feel like a legit journalist, but she also visited WWD.com for more breaking news and scoops. She continued to read WWD’s print edition even when she moved on to writing copy and brand content for e-commerce websites. Lots of fashion reporters, including yours truly, turn to fashion blogs for news, editorial features and reviews—e.g. Fashionista, The Cut, Fashionologie and FabSugar. It’s the kind of readership behavior that’s common today, given our generation’s demand for immediacy and hashtag-worthy stories.
“I think there will also be a place for magazines in the fashion industry,” Hargrove says. “It’s such a visual medium that you want to be able to see all of the detailing of the garment, hold the weight of the glossy, see the shiny pictures. It’s all still very inspiring but the actual words that accompany the photos could become more feature-y or in-depth reporting. Mostly everything is broken online so when you see it in a magazine three months later, you’re stifling your yawn.”
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Kristina Bustos is a contributing writer for The Riveter and Digital Spy. She was an editor at fashion blog The Blay Report as well as a contributor for Honey, Essence, and Audrey magazines.You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @krisbustos.
Grace Molteni is a Midwest born and raised designer, illustrator, and self-proclaimed bibliophile, currently calling Chicago home. For more musings, work, or just to say hey check her out on Instagram or at her personal website.
