Battle of the Glossies

          

For years, Robbie Myers has been quietly staying in the background, working on putting Elle on the forefront of the pack through different mediums.  Elle linked up with Project Runway, launched its own reality show, Stylista, both which put a face to editors Nina Garcia and Ann Slowey.  Legendary photog and Creative Director Gilles Bensimon left, bringing about a change in vision with Joe Zee bringing his experience from Vitals into the magazine.  Elle also brought in one of my favorite stylists, Kate Lanphear, who can be partly credited with giving Elle its rock star edge that it does so well.  Seems like all of that plotting and planning has paid off for Elle.

  

According to Forbes, Elle has beaten top competitor, Vogue, in number of ad pages for the first quarter of '09.  Vogue has been accused of slipping lately, a change that I've noticed as I've been finding the iconic glossie less interesting than Elle, Bazaar, Instyle etc.  Interestingly, Vogue cites that putting Gossip Girl and partly over-exposed Blake Lively on the cover was too "down market".  (Blake shares the same publicist as Lindsay Lohan, just sayin)  I feel that's it's not so much the celebrity on the cover, because Vogue did put Michelle Obama in J.Crew on the cover, but the overall content of the magazine has been less interesting.  Elle has pages and pages of trends, mixing high and low and bringing in more edgy content than a stuffier Vogue and even Bazaar has been shaking things up by adding spoofs with Jonah Hill bringing in a younger, hipper, and more relatable audience.

Despite the positive news, ad pages are still in a decline as a whole.  Elle is down 22% and Vogue is down 32 %, which is still concerning as magazines can't seem to find their footing again with the internet and a volatile financial market.  

Can Vogue make a comeback especially with the debut of The September Issue (both the actual issue and the movie/documentary)?   Or will Elle hold on?  

xoxo,

SG