On Carine Roitfeld’s new magazine, Hearst’s YouTube channel and the future of fashion magazines
My take on The Future Of Fashion Magazines is generally that the collectable bi-annuals will continue and the commercial monthlies will eventually migrate to online-only. My Self Service magazines with their endless photo-editorials and long-form interviews have stood the test of time because they’re not topical (there’s no news or celeb interviews promoting their latest film-slash-beauty contracts), so the content is more ‘pure’. All the attention right now is on Carine Roitfeld’s forthcoming ‘fashion book’, CR Fashion Book (which is really a bi-annual magazine) and from this WWD article, the format looks to follow my theory. Only spreads and long form articles will be featured while the gaps between the twice yearly issued will be filled with more immediate, newsy online content.
Obviously, this switch won’t happen overnight. There’s still a huge market for print mags (evidenced by my own monthly tower of glossies), but the generation in its early teens now most likely won’t have the nostalgic connections to print magazines as we know them, so won’t continue to buy the Glamours and Grazias as we do.
And there’s another big development in magazines coming very soon indeed. Hearst’s tie-up with Youtube, a fashion channel called Hello Style launches on Saturday. I imagine these weekly digital TV shows from the likes of US Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan will have far reaching implications for the editorial industry as we know it, so I’ll be watching closely. Will you?
