“There will be queues. I’m telling you. The billboards have been up, the word is out, and I expect them to be camped out in the streets from the night before.”
Faith Hope Consolo of TopShop NYC’s real estate company Prudential Douglas Elliman
Last Thursday I attended the Fashion Business Club talk where Vogue.co.uk editor, Dolly Jones interviewed Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman. Shulman is under intense pressure to deliver a magazine that’s still relevant in the current climate – challenging when your target reader is the person being hit hardest by the recession and advertising revenue is in the doldrums. Yet the lady seated in front of us did not look stressed at all. In fact she came across as extremely likable, good at her job and knowing of her audience, despite having never edited a women’s magazine before arriving at the helm of Vogue 17 years ago.
I’ve condensed her most insightful answers into soundbites, but you can read more here.
On getting the Vogue editor job 17 years ago: “It was the last thing in the world that I wanted to do.”
On fashion as a scapegoat for the world’s ills: “Fashion has become a whipping post for everything from body image to celebrity culture to the economy. The media picks on fashion because it can use fashion pictures to illustrate their stories. A fashion picture looks good so makes you more likely to read the story.”
On how the recession affects Vogue’s shoots: “The emphasis has moved to styling as opposed to photography. I have a great team and their styling tips have become more useful for our readers.” [This is so true, I loved the styling feature in the current issue…]
Tips for up-and-coming designers and what a small business needs to survive:
*Product is key – make your message clear
*Be consistent in your offering
*Press is important but needs to be focussed, it’s not necessary to get celebrity endorsement from the outset
*Find a business partner to work with (“if you are going to be a designer, it is a business. You can’t just be an artist.”)
*Accept it takes time
On supermodels: “They became too powerful. When the models were getting more attention than the designers, the designers started sourcing Hollywood”
On interns: “I can’t tell if an intern is good at styling or writing from just seeing them around the office but the successful ones are smart, efficient and make an imprint on you without getting in your face and being irritating.”
On the future of fashion magazines: “There’s a lesson to be learnt from what’s happening with newspapers – they’ve killed off the papers in favour of putting content online, yet online isn’t making the money.”
On the magazines she reads: “I read the New Yorker for unbeatable journalism and I love interiors magazines. I get all the magazines so I don’t need to buy them but I look at them to see who’s copied us! I noticed Grazia used our ‘More Dash Than Cash’ idea but called it ‘More Dash, Less Cash’.”
On LOVE: “We were very competitive with Pop so when Conde Nast took on LOVE I wasn’t sure how it would play out. But it’s very different. Its focus is fashion and celebrity, it’s industry-insidery. Ad-wide they’re a lot cheaper than us, but our circulation is 220,000 and they’re aiming for 40,000 so it’s very different.”
On the importance of fashion shows: “Fashion shows are a good marketing tool yet different clothes work in different ways. Sometimes doing catwalk collections sends things on the wrong tangent. It drives me crazy, putting clothes in the magazine that people can’t actually buy.”
Been catching up on the last few WGSN daily newsletters. What to make of this?!
FASHIONAIR PREPARES FOR LAUNCH LATER THIS YEAR
Music industry veteran Simon Fuller and Sojin Lee, formerly of Net-A-Porter, are to launch a new non-retail fashion website fashionair.com later this year, hosting style-focused entertainment, education, and news content plus a social-networking function.
Fashionair will feature a weekly live news and pop culture show including behind-the-scenes footage, spotlighting the best-selling fashion products and include one-on-one interviews with designers, photographers and make-up artists.
A styling show hosted by industry names will also help viewers “master and adapt” the latest trends to their own wardrobes. Site users will be given the chance to interact with the experts, submitting their own personal video style diaries for potential airing on the site.
It will also offer the opportunity to create personal profiles with mood boards, wish and gift lists, and other fashion files with content from the site.
The company said that rather than sell merchandise, “the goal is to drive users to 500+ e-tailers from around the world through fashion-specific trend content, style information, and brand integration”.
Most of the merchandise discussed in the style segments will be showcased on the site with photos and other detailed information, including where users can find the items, as well as suggestions on the luxury and budget versions of each item.
On my way out of the Paul Smith press day, I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of the Paul Smith HQ reception (above and below). Behind the reception desk is a cabinet of curiosities and opposite it is a wall of framed pictures.
Earlier in the week I’d taken a photo of the b Store window (below) which is showing the work of multi-media artist BEST ONE. There’s something about a collection of objects or images that always stops me in my tracks but more so at the moment as I’m working on a mood board project. I’m always being reminded of ways to place or layer the pictures and different elements to add.
