Condé Nast’s new LOVE
Condé Nast appears to have started a new LOVE affair with the launch of Katie Grand’s much-anticipated ‘fashion and fame’ glossy title…
LOVE, a brand new magazine that promises “edgy and experimental” editorial, hit the shelves earlier this week – carefully planned to fall in line with London Fashion Week – but in times of economic hardship, will consumers (and the already highly-competitive marketplace) really appreciate Condé Nast’s additional high-end style guide?
It certainly seems to differ from Vogue – the publisher’s highly-respected and well-established fashion bible – with bi-annual editions, a £5 price-tag and an extremely high-gloss, quality paper finish. (It could almost pass as a book with its 1.5kg weight and feel, which is why the title will only be available at newsstands and not via subscriptions – although 30% of magazines will be saved especially for high-end targeted retailers such as Harvey Nichols.)
However, in terms of advertising and pagination, LOVE shows many similarities to Vogue – readers are bombarded by pages and pages of high-class fashion ads from all of the top brands – Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Miu Miu and Burberry to name just a few – and with 336 pages, issue one actually falls below Vogue‘s average pagination of 345.
But there is something fundamentally different about LOVE, not only by comparison to Condé Nast’s Vogue but also compared to other titles in the market – the price and ads place it well above the average women’s monthly magazine but somehow it is distinctively down-to-earth.
“Vogue is so well established as the authority and the fashion bible, and with a circulation of over 220,000 is a classic with a powerful voice. LOVE will appeal to a different very specific part of the fashion market and hence the slightly different target audience (which is apparently ‘ardent lovers of fashion, style and popular culture the world over’),” according to Condé Nast.
It’s definitely less aspirational to the only other titles you could call competitors, although it also has the same appeal – sex, celebs, fashion, interviews, style guides, incredible images and endless amounts of adverts (you would never believe that the actual advertising to editorial ratio is 30%:70%).
Readers are treated to an incredible 46 pages of carefully-placed ads before they get to any content – mainly taken-up by world-class fashion brands but also, and perhaps unsurprisingly given the whole ethos of the magazine beyond the price-tag, high-street brands such as Adidas, Top Shop and Diesel.
Ads through the rest of the magazine manage to blend in very cleverly with the title’s editorial, which in itself is largely image-based (even the contents page is broken up by a double-page classic Keira Knightly Chanel spread). LOVE‘s ‘Sweet Hogg’ feature, about the designer-turned-rock-star-turned-designer again, is a prime example – one page of text to five pages of well-thought out Hogg ads.
“LOVE has exceeded its advertising forecast for the first issue, with virtually every important fashion house supporting the launch,” boasts Condé Nast.
The features and editorial, which don’t actually start until page 81 but with standards that are “second to none”, are another differentiating factor for LOVE – they are more real, seemingly unstyled and almost “street” – somewhere between modern Shoreditch-style and 80s Vogue, an effective mix of bright colours and simple black and white. Even the typography stands out, it’s youthful, casual and almost rough – a lot less classic and elegant than Vogue but perhaps more stylish in today’s market – in-tune with the whole feel of the title.
Text sits centrally on the page surrounded by masses of white space, quotes are small and short yet prominent, and there are very few Vogue-like text-filled pages (only four pages out of Ditto’s 25-page feature are devoted to text).
A handful of main-stream celebrities feature in the first edition of LOVE – Iggy Pop, Kate Moss, Courtney Love, Amy Winehouse – as expected but Condé Nast has also added a few unknown ‘fresh talents’ and upcoming star Alexandra Burke (winner of the last X-Factor competition).
A naked Beth Ditto provides the eye-catching, though perhaps unusual, front cover – which certainly does the job of standing out and fits in with the title’s slightly unconventional definition of style.
One thing is for sure, LOVE isn’t afraid to be different (it has even been produced in a bespoke size) and with the amount of provocative and raw, yet tasteful, nude images it’s probably fair to conclude that it is targeted at a more “metrosexual” audience than other women’s mags.
It’s too early to measure LOVE‘s success in the somewhat struggling consumer magazine market, though Condé Nast claims that “the market for LOVE in a recession is stronger than ever with readers always allowing themselves small luxuries, and at £5 for 336 pages of very glossy pages featuring the world’s best photographers and contributors, providing fantasy and escapism, LOVE is great value for money”.
However, it certainly seems that Condé Nast has successfully produced a new fashion title to rival any other, which is equally as exquisite as the beloved Vogue bible, but substantially different and unique in its own right.
MediaTel Group’s ‘Future of Consumer Magazines’ seminar will look at whether Condé Nast’s new title has a place in the market, as well as a host of other topics, on March 11 – for more information or to book please click here