Fashion mag's brightest take to small screen

Thanks to plummeting ad sales for international magazines, due to the recession and consumers’ predilection for accessing fashion online — for free — instead of on the printed page, more than a few magazines have turned to new media.

Due to the runaway success of TV’s Project Runway, even magazines with pedigrees too high-faluting for a medium as mass market as television have decided to widen their net beyond newsstand sales and subscriptions.

Since Nina Garcia’s stint on Runway, Elle’s numbers have seen a stratospheric rise: their September volume marks their biggest issue yet and readership figures have also seen a substantial increase. AdAge magazine recently noted that Elle’s newsstand sales and ad placements soared after its partnership with Runway, making them second only to Vogue. That’s a four-point rise from number six in the hierarchy to numero dos.

This could also be attributed to the magazine’s openness to partner with new media. Though their online presence doesn’t hold a candle to the behemoth that is Style.com, Elle branched out by creating personas for its staffers in the media.

Nina Garcia, for example, has parlayed her success on the show into best-selling fashion books. Brands clamor for her appearance at store openings and product launches. Anne Slowey, Elle fashion news director, is headlining the new Stylista, produced by the same Tyra Banks-run crew as America’s Next Top Model. The reality show, based on contestants competing for the chance to be Slowey’s assistant, thus granting them a break into the exclusive world of New York publishing, is in part Devil Wears Prada. In one of the promos for the show, the camera pans down to a pair of sky-high platforms emerging from a town car. Slowey, dressed in what appears to be the latest from the fall collection, teeters to the elevator and appears, eyebrow arched, mouth set in a smirk, to evaluate each candidate.

This isn’t the first time Elle’s staffers have made it to the small screen. More than a few of the editorial team members, along with editor-in-chief Joe Zee and Naomi Campbell, played softball against Mode magazine’s crew on Ugly Betty. Attired in knee-high socks and team jerseys with their names emblazoned on the back, the Elle crew, simply put, was game. They appeared not to be concerned with appearance, unlike their stiff-upper-lip counterparts at Vogue who would never agree to be filmed with a hair out of place, sans stilettos and some ladylike frock.

It was revealed, in a recent story in New York magazine, that Eli Holzman, the man responsible for Project Runway, originally approached Anna Wintour to get Vogue as the show’s magazine component. “The thing is, Vogue is so conscious of being Vogue and what is cool and not cool,” says Holzman who was turned down by Le Wintour.

Now that Vogue is supposedly down a hundred pages compared to last year’s September issue (a substantial loss for any magazine, but represents more for Vogue with ad prices that far outrank its competitors), the magazine is in the process of strengthening its reach.

Marie Claire is joining the fray with a Style Network production dubbed Running in Heels, an exhaustive look at life in the Hearst office. The docu show will follow the people behind the publication as they put together each issue, while capturing their personal lives as well. Created to provide a never-before-seen look at fashion and the people who dictate it, it will “offer unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Marie Claire and the stylish, smart women who put the magazine together each month,” says editor-in-chief Joanna Coles. Set to debut in March of next year, the show will make use of the magazine’s latest adoption — none other than Nina Garcia.

Meanwhile Style.com recently re-launched with a lighter, airier layout. And, while the magazine does not appear to have any fondness for the reality show genre, it is currently helming a docu-style show about three somewhat neophyte models trying to make it big in New York called Model Live in what could be an attempt to recoup their losses publicity-wise.

On Vogue.tv, the camera follows three models — Cato, Austria and Madeline — as they navigate the world of fashion in the hopes of becoming — to copy Tyra Banks’ catchphrase — the next top model. Beautifully shot (as expected, nothing Vogue ever does is haphazard or subpar), the models talk about their hometown while their family and loved ones get some screen time, allowing viewers to catch a glimpse of their seeming anxiety over the fashion world’s excesses (over-the-top luxury, drugs, unhealthy eating habits).

“They open themselves up to all this criticism,” says Jimmy, model Madeline’s Aussie boyfriend. “People don’t realize it,” he says, “how hard these girls work.”

Currently, the online channel offers 60 Seconds to Chic, a quick trend redux that shows viewers how to accomplish the latest looks, The Collections, videos of runway shows, and perhaps the best of the bunch, Behind the Lens, a behind-the-scenes look at designers and their studios before debuting their collections.

Whether this show proves to have the same mainstream success as Project Runway, thus bringing Vogue to a whole new segment of potential readers, is yet to be seen. But so far, you can color me curious. I’ll certainly be tuned in as soon as the next Model Live video drops.