Fashion spread, courtesy of Vogue (US)

NEW YORK, United States — Susan Sontag once said “fashion is fashion photography.” She might have added: “and fashion photography is the magazine.”

Indeed, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of magazines to the fashion system. More than the runway, the boutique, the boulevard, or the internet, glossy physical magazines are still the primary place where fashion lives and the most powerful pathway for its transmission.

But in the first few weeks of 2009, the outlook for powerhouse fashion publishers like Condé Nast (which has almost monopolized high-end magazines) looks decidedly grim. In response to the recession, advertisers are slashing their marketing spend.

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Vogue Magazine, photo courtesy of the New York Times

What’s wrong with Vogue? (New York Times)
“Vogue has become stale and predictable, and it has happened in spite of some of the best editors, writers and photographers in the business.”

Lunchtime Snap: The Highs and Lows of 2008 Runway Fashions (WSJ)
The Wall Street Journal breaks down the most ubiquitous trends of 2008.

French fashion retailer Morgan files for bankruptcy (Times UK)
Morgan, the French retailer that counts Carla Bruni as one of its models, has filed for bankruptcy.

European Firms Seek Minority Partners (WWD)
“Minority stakes are becoming newly de rigueur with private equity and family-controlled funds, which are still sitting on cash piles and hunting for deals.”

LONDON, United Kingdom – Back in 1995, Netscape Navigator was the dominant web-browser with a market share of more than 90%.  People were talking about the launch of Altavista, an Internet search engine that acheived 300,000 hits on its very first day. On the fashion end of things, the New York Times’ Amy Spindler was tearing apart Donna Karan and raving about Mark Eisen in her review of the New York A/W 1995 collections.

Today, Netscape’s share of web-browser use is less than 1% and Altavista is a relic. Donna Karan still puts out collections in New York, but she scarcely merits a full length review in Cathy Horyn’s reviews. Nobody even remembers Mark Eisen. In the worlds of Fashion and the Internet, things can change very quickly indeed. Combine the two together, and things travel at lightspeed.

That’s why the longevity and continued market dominance of  the UK’s VOGUE.COM, which also launched in 1995, is remarkable. I spoke to Editor Dolly Jones about the new technology and content underlying the relaunched site. Not one to rest on her laurels, we also discussed the business imperatives for keeping VOGUE.COM at the top of its game.

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Image courtesy of Fashion156.com

LONDON, United Kingdom - While taking a whirl around the Internet these days you’re bound to bump into an online fashion magazine – or ten. Everyone from Richard Mortimer of Boombox fame to Net-a-Porter’s Natalie Massenet is getting in on the action – and looking for ways to monetise it.

For a long time, content developers had a hard time creating a distinction between simple websites and bonafide online magazines. But, in the past year, a plethora of online magazines have emerged with three common threads:

Multimedia:   The new magazines are a veritable multi-media festival. For some content consumers, particularly younger tech-savvy types, a multi-media experience is the only way to capture (and keep) their attention: lots of videos, blogs, and communities.

Integration: The trick here has been to create a truly integrated experience across different channels — for example,  how do you make an offline page really come alive on the Internet? Creating complementary content that can be consumed separately, and together, satisfies even the most demanding multi-tasker.

Convergence:   Style.com meets Neiman Marcus.com. Content companies are integrating commerce models into their sites while commerce companies are creating their own content, and thereby, becoming content destinations in and of themselves. 

To mark the surge of online magazines, we’ve compiled a list of ten of the most interesting concepts to watch:
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It’s turning out to be fashion magazine week on the Business of Fashion.

A couple of months ago, Dominic Sohn, a newly appointed Fashion Editor at Vogue Korea, contacted me to get some thoughts on the revolving doors for designers at major fashion houses. This was before Lars Nilsson was turfed from Gianfranco Ferre (just days before his first runway show) only to be replaced by Tomasso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi of 6267 and before Paulo Melim Andersson was sent packing after three seasons at Chloe, making way for Hannah MacGibbon. Dominic’s questions were timely indeed.

Excerpts from the interview have just been published in an article in the May 2008 edition of Vogue Korea, along with the reflections of Sally Singer of American Vogue. It was such an interesting exchange that it’s posted here for BoF readers.

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