INTRODUCTION:
This critical journal is broken down into three sections/chapters and the main aim of the journal is to demonstrate my understanding of editorial-writing principles and furthermore the process of creating this editorial project. The first chapter is ‘Fashion editorial: A historical perspective’. This section explores the history of fashion magazines and their evolution over time. The second chapter shows my reflective practice: ‘A rationale for the project’. So, my reasoning for the outcome of my project. And the final chapter covers ‘Editorial and marketing’, this section covers my understanding of the editorial market today and furthermore the marketing scheme for my project, i.e., how I wish to promote and sell my editorial magazine.
Fashion Editorial: A historical persepctive: Fashion magazines can be traced back to the late 1600s. They were named ‘The treasure hidden secrets’ and ‘honest matrons and virtuous virgins’. During the reign of Queen Anne, the content shifted to women’s diaries, gazelles, or pocket pamphlets, with a female-centric audience (glamobserver.com, 2022). Therefore, at this time they were smaller printed pieces, not yet a fully completed editorial fashion magazine.
Moving onto the 1700s when print technology developed. During the time printing equipment, a falling newspaper tax, and rising literary rates brought magazines to more households. In 1870 and 1880 a new genre of graphics began, with a focus on women’s position in the public world (Livia Gershon, 2015). In England, one of the earliest fashion magazines for women was La Belle Assemblée, founded by John Bell and included a fashion section that targeted women from high society, aiming at presenting the latest trends in fashion (Rachel Knowles, 2011).
The 20th century is when a boom in magazine sales began, due to advances in technology, printing, and papermaking. Fashion plates moved from woodcuts, engraving, and lithographs to photography. The social change brought a flood of popularity to magazines, especially to women’s magazines, due to feminism and the acts they made for social change, and the birth of teenagers was a new market to be tapped (Rachel Britt, 2017).
The appetite for fashion has been further fuelled by instant gratification. Fashion journalism had been closely linked to shopping since the earliest magazines featured service bureaus and mail-ordered features. In the new millennium, e-tailers blurred the distinction further through their online magazine format. Therefore, the switch from print to digital is growing constantly (Kate Nelson Best, 2017). Pressgazete stated that the Economist led the pack on global digital edition sales of one million-almost twice of its print edition (Pressgazette.co.uk, 2022).
Today, arguably the most popular fashion magazine is Cosmopolitan and Vogue. Cosmopolitan has been said to “encourage readers to feel like they can conquer anything” (The Hub, 2019). It is packed with fashion trends, relationship advice and beauty tips, career guidance, and health tricks. Back in the 1600s-1700’s fashion magazines were compiled with simple fashion advice; from the length of a hemline to the colours that may suit you the most. But as the world has developed, so has the information in fashion magazines. Now fashion magazines can be viewed as a collection of art in terms of fashion and creativity today and furthermore, many acts as a self-help guide on how to dress, look and act day to day.
(Maximillian, 2018)
(Tumblr, 2020) (Pinterest, 2019)
Refelective Practice: A rationale for the project
The rationale for any fashion magazine is to publicize and share fashion-related content with desired readers. It has been said that “Fashion magazines are born from the need of a high social class to publicize the created models. And exchange them with parallel societies in the status of other countries” (Fashion trends. Style, 2023). Therefore, fashion magazines tend to glamorize society and the fashion world, and most of the time the bad parts of womanhood and fashion, and lifestyle are washed away and not spoken about. Therefore, the rationale for my project was to create a more realistic, yet still aesthetically pleasing, fashion magazine for women of any age to read and feel included and heard. This fashion magazine will act as a ‘big sister’ to those reading it.
At the beginning of this module, I was concerned with the word count and how I was going to be able to reach the desired 2,000 words. However, the amount of freedom we had to choose whatever we wanted to write about really helped me invest my time and curiosity into finding ways to write and achieve the word count as I was writing about a subject, I had a great interest in. This is related to the theory of ‘the effect of enjoyment and learning’ (Joanna Hernik, 2018). To put it short, the theory outlines that emotions evoke engagement, and therefore the pure fact that I was writing about something I felt passionate about allowed me to find joy in the research process and hopefully allowed me to succeed in this project compared to researching a topic I had no interest in.
Speaking about theories, when reflecting on the process I took in order to create this project I went round and round deciding what images to use, and what colour palette to include through the magazine, all sorts of debating went into the creation of this magazine. At times I questioned my ideas and my own capability of creativity and therefore this was one of my downfalls and something I wish to work on in future module projects. This mental and physical process of experimenting with colours, fonts, and topic ideas, links to the theory by Kolb and his ‘experimental learning cycle’. As stated by Kolb himself- “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Saul Mcleaod, 2023). Linking this to the reflection of my creative process to my project, I had to experiment with ideas in order to realize what I did and didn’t like, which then, therefore, allowed me to create something I was proud of and would want to purchase and read myself. Therefore, on reflection, I found that initial ideas do not always succeed. You must be willing to question your ideas in order to succeed and therefore I learned that I am capable, I just need to be open to experimentation.
I wanted the layout of my magazine to consist of both imagery and informative subsections so that it was both producing information and was still easy on the eye. The main coverage of the magazine is femininity. A completely female-focused magazine, covering topics of female self-love, upcoming clothing trends, and the topic of ‘divine femininity’. What women share, in this perspective, provides a basis for “sisterhood,” or unity, solidarity, and shared identity. Therefore, the rationale for this project was to include subsections and topics which I know females find interesting, and yet there may not always be a lot of magazines that talk about topics such as the struggle we all face with self-love. Many times, the fashion industry, but editorial fashion posts, forget to talk about unity. As a reader, you may feel as if you are the only one being spoken to and that can make you feel alone. Therefore, ‘Femme’ magazine, while personal to each reader, truly is designed to allow females to feel as though they are part of a community, the ‘Femme community’.
(Micha Pyke, 2017)Good marketing helps you reach and connect with your target audience and ultimately it is how you will grow your business in the long run (Lyfemarketing.com, 2022). Therefore, where/how you plan to market your editorial magazines is a vital tool for selling the product, gaining the desired target audience, and making money.
One way I wish to market my publication is by promoting it on social media platforms, idealy Instagram. I would create an Instagram page for the magazine so that I could upload sneak peeks of the next editions, update the followers on when the next articles would be coming out and I feel as though social media pages such as Instagram are a good way to achieve the desired target audience. Finding your target audience is imperative to boosting sales, leading convincing marketing campaigns, as well as creating brand loyalty from your consumers (krausgroupmarketing, 2020). Therefore, creating an Instagram to market the magazine will allow consumers to find you and therefore they will be interested in the types of things like the theme of the publication.
Furthermore, due to the creative, trendy aesthetic of my magazine, I will be selling it in stores such as Urban outfitters and independent trendy cafés and vintage shops such as ‘COW’ and those similar to the ones in Corn exchange in Leeds. Therefore, once again, reaching the correct target audience. In order to gain good coverage over time, I aim to work with popular models and creative individuals, to shoot them for the magazine and potentially interview them and create an article with them. People hold certain celebrities in high regard, so an endorsement of a product instantly increases the amount of trust the consumer has in the brand (Alex Paul, 2023). Therefore, as the magazine becomes more popular from being held in stores as stated above, I would then reach out to creative like-minded people on Instagram and hopefully to fashion models, to therefore be a part of an upcoming article.
I would finally, create an additional exclusive subscription for the readers, to allow them to feel as though they are part of a community. The readers would be able to pay a small amount to unlock an exclusive, shorter edition with un-seen imagery and editorial pages. It can be said that customers are enticed to pay more for exclusivity because of a lot of reasons such as quality and comfort, rarity, price, goodwill, and self-gratification (Knowswhy, 2010). Everyone loves a bit of exclusivity, to feel a part of something special, that not everyone has access to. Therefore, not only will this increase money sales but will bring in an audience that has respect and desire for the magazine and furthermore, will create great growth for the magazine.
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