There is irony in discussing the demise of fashion publishing, in that Fashion Reverie is a fashion publication. However, as much as we love fashion journalism, there is no denying that the Gilded Age of fashion media is over. As publications find ways to adapt to an era where social media is king, and over 40 percent of millennials and younger people are getting their news from TikTok, competition is tough.
The greatest golden age of fashion publishing was arguably the 1990s and the 2000s, before the Great Recession. In those days, print was still king. Magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Elle were stacked with hundreds of ad pages from brands ranging from Club Monaco to Chanel. The September issues, which is still considered the January of fashion, meant a cash cow of ad dollars for major fashion magazines.
Following the Great Recession of 2007 and the increase in digital consumption of news content, the decline of fashion publishing began. Condé Nast, the parent company of Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair, shuttered Men’s Vogue during the 2007 recession, along with Cookie, a parenting magazine aimed toward stylish moms. Teen-centric magazines, including Teen People and Cosmogirl, also shuttered. If anything, the recession helped kill the latter before social media inevitably would. Daily News Record (or DNR), the brother publication to fashion bible Women’s Wear Daily, folded, and its men’s coverage was absorbed into its sister publication.
In 2007, no industry was safe. Factories that were the source of blue-collar jobs were closing, there was a subprime mortgage crisis that left real estate struggling, and behemoths of American banks and financial firms were either being bailed out by the government or going under. At the time, the media was seen as just another victim of the worst economic crisis the world had seen since the Great Depression.
As the economy rebounded, so did the magazines’ ad pages. Vogue went from slimmed-down issues of fewer than 500 pages for its September issues right back to hefty issues with hundreds of ad pages. Its September issues continued being sizable through 2015, and slowly its ad pages began to decline. In 2015, Vogue had 615 ad pages for its September issue; by 2019, that number had declined to 415.
At the time Vogue’s ad pages were declining, Condé Nast also shut the print issues of Self, which went digital-only in 2016, and Glamour, which published its last print issue in 2019. In 2020, during the global COVID-19 pandemic, magazine ad pages practically fell off a cliff. Vogue’s September issue was a paltry 201 ad pages, the slimmest September issue it had published in the 21st century. Incoming Vogue editorial director Chloe Malle says she is exploring approaching print with a special edition concept rather than doing ten print issues a year, as is the magazine’s current circulation. Vogue’s younger counterpart, Teen Vogue, is thriving with digital traffic but shuttered its monthly print issue in 2017.
While Condé Nast rival Hearst Magazines hasn’t shuttered any publications over the past few years, Teen Vogue’s rival Seventeen also ceased publishing a print issue the following year, in 2018. Hearst also cut down the circulation of magazines like Harper’s Bazaar to ten issues a year.
No fashion publication has seen more hands change and been through a bigger whirlwind than InStyle. InStyle was previously owned by Time Inc., one of the biggest players in mass media. In 2018, Meredith Corporation acquired InStyle for $2.8 billion, and for a while, all seemed well. Then, in 2021, Dotdash acquired Meredith Corporation’s magazines, ceasing print circulation for InStyle and ousting the magazine’s former editor-in-chief, Laura Brown.
The only other fashion magazine that has arguably seen as much of a rollercoaster ride as InStyle is W. W was formerly a Condé Nast publication. It began as a biweekly spin-off of Women’s Wear Daily in 1972. In 1993, it relaunched as an oversized glossy magazine and became a pinnacle of art, fashion, and Hollywood content. In 2019, W was sold to Surface Media, but that didn’t last long. By 2020, it was purchased by W Media, which was created for the purchase of the publication, and now operates in partnership with Bustle Digital Group and a group of investors led by Karlie Kloss. W is one of the few Bustle-affiliated properties with a print issue, as it currently publishes six issues per year.
Photography © Tyler Mitchell for W Magazine
Although fashion media is far from dead, print is slowly going the way of the dinosaur. Print magazine budgets are being trimmed in favor of video content. Companies are also investing more in the e-commerce arms of their publications. As part of their experiment to cut costs, more companies are pooling staff and sharing content across multiple titles. Copy and research editors are also out at most publications. It’s not unheard of for staff to work across multiple titles at publications, with a fashion editor for an entire group of fashion and lifestyle publications.
For what is left of print, individual issue newsstand sales have gone up. Magazine prices can reach $6.99 now, with $7.99 for September issues. In abysmal news, the U.S. Association of Magazine Media stopped releasing annual ad page counts in 2015, so it is tough to say just how bad print advertising has become.
Images courtesy of the respective magazines
The biggest competitors for the future of fashion publishing are Instagram and TikTok. There are no greater competitors for fashion lovers’ eyeballs on the market, and Instagram and TikTok have entire fashion and luxury divisions now. Even YouTube has a fashion and beauty partnership arm, making the space for video content, which was once considered a future boon for fashion publications.
Nonetheless, many of these big media brands still have names that carry a lot of weight. What were once print issues can now be adapted into digital issues, with digital covers, editorial photoshoots, and a social media push for content. While the Golden Age of print is long gone, there is still a future for fashion publishing. People love content, and fashion is a beloved visual medium. The key is continuing to evolve.
Kristopher Fraser
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