Wednesday 26 September 2007

Magazines vrs Blogs

I never thought I would say this but I really think the magazine era is over. Last week was London Fashion Week mania with every fashion blogger in town adding their two pence about their thoughts on the shows. Then later in the week, the latest pictures from the much awaited Sex and the City (S&TC) film dropped and the whole of blogsphere went ballistic. I must have read about 50 blog entries gushing about the new pictures and seen the image of SJP in Carrie Bradshaw mode floating down NYC in her green flimsy summer dress about a zillion times. She looked great as usual and the blog to blog coverage of the taster showed a tiny glimpse as to how BIG the S&TC film will be.

Yesterday, I bought my weekly edition of Grazia magazine which had the usual editorial from Editor, Jane Bruton. Nothing unusual there except that she was raving on about the new trends from London Fashion Week and describing how excited the staff got over the new stills from the S&TC film. I thought to myself, Jesus this is a bit old hat. London Fashion Week effectively ended last Thursday and that seemed yonks ago and as for the S&TC pics all I could think was been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. My point is that Grazia is a weekly magazine and prides itself on being on the cutting edge of news, fashion and celebrity. Their USP is that they can cover stories that the monthly mags such as Marie Claire and Elle cannot do but for this week they seemed a little out of touch.

Talking of cutting edge, lifestyle portal, handbag.com has had a facelift and shed their pink branding. They have also dropped a lot of sections such as property, money and relationships and now concentrate on fashion, beauty, celebrity and entertainment. In other words they are now just like any other online female magazine. To be honest I am not too keen on the new look handbag.com at all as I think they have lost a lot of their personality. On the other hand the Marie Claire website is totally ravishing. Well designed and easy to navigate, the website covers topics such as fashion, health and food. The best bits of the site are the videos where they carry interviews with various fashion personalities. You can watch footage from fashion shows, behind the scenes with celebrities and there are also trailers from new film releases. Blogsphere leads all the way.

Check out the lovely SJP at the launch of her new perfume, Covet. Which is rather nice, I might say.

3 cool comments:

Toluwalope said...

Hi Ronke,
Nice blog.
I sent an email to your ondolady address.
Look forward to hearing from you

Omo Alagbede

Brown Girl Gumbo said...

Great blog! I actually agree that the magazine era may be coming to an end soon. I am an avid lover of mags, but things change I guess. Blogs are just as great except we can't take them with us on the trains. :-)

Erica Bartle (nee Holburn) said...

Hi Ronke,
Great post. I almost feel sorry for magazine fashion editors who have to contend with three-month editorial leads rendering their commentary, particularly on the recent shows, almost obsolete. By then we're already seen the pics on style.com, read bloggers' opinions, screened the newspapers and checked out the weekly mags.

However, what magazines lack in lead time, they make up for in credibility. If Anna Wintour takes a liking to a designer, or a collection, and he/she is featured in Vogue, they're virtually guaranteed success. Magazines also have the time to analyse the trends and present them to us in in-depth feature articles, and they have the connections which make stories like Luella's diary for UK Elle happen. I still like to see the trends presented in all their glossy glory, with accompanying text, still-life and retro references. The beauty of fashion blogs is the quick-fix: the beauty of magazines is their decadence.

One of the things that gets me about magazines, however, is definitely the paper factor. Hardly any are printed on recycled paper. Outrageous considering how much editoral they've dedicated to 'being green' over the past 12 months.

Despite my huge affection for and obsession with blogs, I think magazines will always have their place (firmly in my handbag).

Erica x
girlwithasatchel.blogspot.com