Though they’ve concentrated on the old part of the old vs new media mentality, WWD have taken a look at the current state of the print media fashion business and it’s not all good news. The sales of fashion magazines are falling for every magazine. Unless you were the stalwart fashion title that opted to put Lady Gaga on your cover. Then you were onto a winner.
Vogue has a lot to thank Lady Gaga for.
The title was the only one in the fashion magazine category to show a sales increase on the newsstand in the first half, and it was all down to the outre pop star’s appearance on the March cover. The shot, featuring a pink-haired Gaga wearing a breezy white gown with purple lips, drove sales up by more than 100,000 copies over the March 2010 issue, which featured a polar opposite type of celebrity: Tina Fey.
All in all, Vogue averaged 360,400 copies during the first half of this year at newsstand, up 12.7 percent.
Every other fashion title — with the exception of Allure, which was flat — dropped in the first half, some by more than double digits.
Other figures relevance to the sales of fashion magazines include:
- The fashion magazine business as a whole experienced a decline of 9.2%; however, there’s no separation there between old and new print media.
- InStyle is down 8% in sales but remains the leader at the newsstand, selling an average of 570,272 copies.
- Marie Claire sales were down a 21.5%
- Glamour sales were down 17.5%
- Harper’s Bazaar were down 14.3% on the back of an increase of 10% in 2010
Via WWD.
