From the Renaissance, which began in Florence, Italy, to the many pioneers who have continuously changed the concept of art and literature in the world in modern times, giving the Italian fashion industry a unique and rich historical, cultural and artistic atmosphere, many Italian family businesses that adhere to traditional craftsmanship and style can be the most powerful evidence. At the same time, the Italian fashion media, which has grown and broken through under its nourishment, has also been free and bold in multi-dimensional creative output in the past.
Even though the new media industry has dramatically changed the way people flip through publications over the long past, Vogue and its parent companies, Condé Nast, Marie Claire and other traditional fashion magazines are facing increasing challenges. But there is still no shortage of young creative workers, creating more and more distinctive independent magazines, exploring fashion from the level of literature, poetry, art, lifestyle and other aspects of fashion.
Through WWD's observation of the global fashion media industry, Dàme Magazine, founded by 22-year-old Sara Augugliaro, and five Italian independent magazines such as Virtus Magazine and Virtus Magazine are the most typical of them. Feminism, art, music, culture, and sex are all core issues they focus on, and through carefully planned content sections and creative photography, they can bring readers a better sense of paper beauty, and at the same time, they can also bring new ideas with reference to many traditional fashion magazines facing difficulties.
The 22-year-old founder of Dàme, an independent magazine with feminism at its core, explores several dimensions of the female body to inspire a sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Dàme's first issue of "Pancia"
In Dàme's first issue, "Pancia" (belly in Italian), the different meanings of this body part are detailed. Sara Augugliaro said: "Over the years, there have been many studies related to the socio-cultural significance of reconstructing women's body parts, but so far, almost no one has paid attention to the abdomen because it has never appeared in the collective imagination. Therefore, we want to explore this neglected part of the body based on a rich reference. ”
Founded in 2005, Virtus Magazine is founded by the Luso Fashion Institute, located on Via Montenapoleone in Milan, focusing on the cultivation of professionals in high-end fashion fields such as fashion design and luxury management from design to management, from marketing to image.
Virtus Magazine
As the first Italian publication to be edited by a fashion school, Virtus Magazine has been committed to focusing on and promoting the journalism, styling and photography work of fashion students, and the school's professor of fashion journalism, Nicola Ievola, and the professor of fashion styling, Noemi Vanda Bruni, have provided very key core ideas for the content of this magazine.
The third issue of Virtus Magazine focuses on the Renaissance movement, a historical period that had a profound impact on Italian culture, art and religion, and how it made a comeback in a more modern guise and had an important impact on the fashion industry.
Sali Tabacchi is a traditional shop in Italy where people can buy sweets, cigars, spices, cigarettes and chocolates. The independent magazine of the same name, launched in 2019, seeks to present this sense of multiplicity between lifestyle and culture, focusing on Italian culture and offering a variety of experimental content, including interviews with well-known Italian cultural leaders, visual poetry, academic papers and recipes.
Tobacco Salts
Like other independent magazines, the photographic style brings sali e Tabacchi a unique identity, from which readers can discover hidden corners, landscapes that have never been explored, and stories from the past and present, reflecting a real Italy.
Archivio Magazine's goal is to highlight innovation by bringing fashion and culture from different eras to life in the present. Exploring the 80s in Issue 6, the magazine features a selection of historic fashion shows, while the multitude of writers, poets and politicians has brought more social relevance to fashion.
Magazine Archive
In the latest issue, readers can get exclusive content from Giorgio Armani, an interview with Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the industry views of prominent industry leaders such as Vivienne Westwood on the decade.
Archivio Magazine's 80-page images are also very distinctive, including posters, documents, sketches, scripts, art projects, agendas, diaries, and a variety of materials from 23 archives.
Carnale Magazine was founded by Artistic Director Augusto Arduini and photographer Simone Cossettini. The independent magazine triggers the reader's five senses of taste, sight, touch, hearing and smell in a sexy but not kitsch way. Focus on fashion, celebrating appeal through the interaction of paper media.
Based on this, Carnale Magazine also brings an augmented reality experience through the app: readers watch the print version of the magazine through the mobile phone camera, and the moving image presented on the screen will bring a different reading experience.
Carnal Magazine
It is clear that Carnale Magazine, Archivio Magazine, Sali e Tabacchi, and many more independent magazines that still adhere to unique content and reading experiences in the new media era are changing the traditional model of traditional fashion publications on the one hand, and on the other hand, they have also brought many inspirations to Vogue and its parent companies, Condé Nast, Marie Claire and other traditional fashion magazines.
For a long time in the past, based on the single aesthetics such as skin color and body shape, the public opinion storm that is too centralized in discourse power, and the impact of the new media industry on print media, are the root causes of the crisis of more and more traditional fashion magazines.
From 2019, When Vogue posted photos of Chinese models on the official Instagram and wrote the text "challenging" the standards of beauty and appearance, it was accused of deliberately defaming Asians; last year, Condé Nast Group was once again caught in the whirlpool of public opinion due to racial discrimination, and Anna Wintour, the group's chief content officer, global editorial director, and editor-in-chief of the US version of Vogue, was the target of various spearheads. Anna Wintour is criticized for exercising white privileges, creating an environment in which people of color dwarf their voices. Anna Wintour immediately posted a letter of apology and adjusted accordingly for the following magazine shoots.
Anna Wintour
In addition, Condé Nast has also been in serious personnel turmoil in recent years. Since last year, Zhang Yu, the Chinese editor-in-chief of Vogue Clothing and Beauty for 15 years, the head of the German version, the head of the Spanish version, and the editorial director of the French, Indian and Japanese editions of Vogue this year, and the editorial director of the British and French editions of GQ have all left.
Back in 2019, Condé Nast's group headquarters at One World Trade Center in New York was reduced from 23 to 15 floors. In 2020, Condé Nast also announced a 10 to 20 percent pay cut for employees earning more than $100,000 a year starting in May.
Since the 2019 British edition of Marie Claire announced the cessation of the sale of print magazines, in September this year, the 27-year-old American edition of "Jia Ren" announced by email to subscribers that the print edition will be discontinued, only the digital platform and special issues will be retained, and the summer 2021 issue will be the last issue of the magazine. In May, British media company Future announced that it had completed its acquisition of the US version of Jia Ren, after Future had acquired TI Media Group in late 2019, including magazines such as Wallpaper, Country Life, Decanter and The British edition of Jia Ren.
And those emerging independent magazines have mastered the pulse of global culture such as decentralized discourse power and aesthetic pluralism, thus reaching a more successful communication with readers. If the traditional fashion miscellaneous can learn from these cutting-edge niche in time, it may be able to win back readers in the future and enter a new chapter in fashion media. WWD
Written by Alice Monorchio
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