WCME: Niche Fashion Print Comes Roaring Back
The latest riff on tariffs. The "revenge" of indie magazines. Plus: You'll be hearing a lot about Gwyneth Paltrow this summer as she gets an Oscars glam up starting with the independent press.
What Caught My Eye is a new daily column about pushback.
Hello everyone, I’m at the gym starting a workout before heading back to the office. I’ve been thumbing the journals and it’s feeling pretty bleak out there.
We are tilting into a world of tariffs where brands like TWP, a New York darling who had the equivalent of debutante ball at the Gramercy Hotel during NYFW this past fall, says it “doesn’t even know what the cost of our merchandise will be next week.” The gossip, according to the New York Times, is that American manufacturers who source materials from abroad are “biting their nails and pulling their hair out.”
A quilted Chanel bag just got that much more expensive. I wonder if resale will follow suit for a quick buck on the street.
I’m going to play a little game here. Today TWP’s The Next Morning Shirt retails in the US for $395, and ships to Paris for 501€ (taxes included) through Saks Fifth Avenue. I’ll be making an excel with what I call lighthouse products to track the tariffs fallout. Submit product ideas if you want me to track something in specific. It will help with the whole tariff debacle as we navigate stormy waters. I’ll keep you posted.
Not to play the newspaper boy today, but I’m going to play the newspaper boy. Let’s get to it.
WCME: Niche Magazines Push Back
You’ve probably heard about Family Style, the dinner party themed fashion magazine causing waves.
Pretty much since Paper Magazine published the “Break The Internet” cover the fall of 2014, with Kim Kardashian popping champagne in a custom dress and vintage gloves, 7th avenue fashion print mags folded. The full frontal editorial asked a very pressing question: does fashion still need print coverage? InStyle went fully digital. Ditto Andy Warhol’s long and slender Interview magazine, digital.
But over Covid, start up fashion magazines experienced a sort of renaissance in Europe. In fact they began to thrive. Perhaps it was a European willingness to lounge back in an armchair and enjoy the luxury of opening a magazine on a Sunday with a coffee in tow. A drive for home improvement. Or, that the lust for life led people to rip apart books and moodboard. Whatever it was, it got people talking.
At the height of the crisis, I remember going to my Paris bookstore on the hunt for this September copy of Vogue only to be told it was going to take an additional 1-2 months for the American magazine to arrive in Europe.
Is it coming by boat? I asked the sales clerk at Smith & Son jokingly.
Fast forward to this spring, and niche/independent/indie whatever you want to call them magazines have made a comeback. Their pitch is high-quality design and they’re made to deliver a luxury experience. Artefacts with a one-way ticket to the flea market. Little Titanics!
For stylists, the indie mags offer field work for say, the covers Gwyneth is going to get this year as coverage ramps up to the premiere of Marty Supreme.
“We’re not flying private jets or taking town cars. We are extremely lean, and we do things in ways that are modest”, Joshua Glass, founder of Family Style told the Times, adding “we are in the black.”
For us, indie mags provide a fresh look at what’s happening in the world, before it really happens.
Have a good day!
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I welcome the return of the Indie Magazine, now if I can only find a newsstand to buy them!