NEW YORK — Androgyny, long a preoccupation of fashion designers, has come to magazines.
After serving up just two issues of Vitals, the new high-end lifestyle guide for men, Fairchild Publications is set to launch a mirror-image edition for women. (Fairchild is also parent of WWD.) The premiere issue of Vitals Woman arrives Feb. 10 on newsstands and in the mailboxes of demographically targeted recipients.
No mere spin-off, Vitals Woman is virtually identical to Vitals in many respects. The two titles have a common design, staff and qualified-controlled circulation model, and feature many of the same editorial sections. Above all, they share a mission, which vice president and group publisher Alyce Alston describes as “luxury lifestyle that’s unapologetic in its focus on smart service. It’s about this experience you have of networking and word-of-mouth, but translated into print.”
Of course, there are differences, beyond which side the shirts button from. Vitals Woman serves up more beauty, fashion and accessories, and less gadgets and cars, than its male counterpart. It also has a party-pages section called “Spy” and a comprehensive guide to wearing heels.
But the execution has the same free-associative vibe, garnishing essential information with interesting trivia, such as the factoid that lions can’t roar until age two.
“He answers questions you don’t even know you have,” said Alston of Vitals’ editor in chief, Joe Zee. “He thinks in 3-D.”
Vitals Woman will be published four times this year, alternating with four issues of Vitals. Each edition has a rate base of 200,000, with 80 percent of that coming from mailings to a database of consumers with minimum household incomes of $75,000.
The premiere issue has 40 ad pages, including buys from a number of advertisers that also have run in Vitals, such as Burberry, Calvin Klein, Armani, Donna Karan and Hugo Boss.
Alston said that luxury marketers that cater to both male and female consumers were quick to embrace the idea of a magazine brand that does the same. Patti Cohen, executive vice president of global marketing and communications for Donna Karan International, agreed. “You’re talking to the same person, whether it’s a male or a female,” she said, adding, “I think [Vitals] has great design and editorial vision.”
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It will take both to succeed in a media market that is increasingly crowded on both sides of the gender divide. While Vitals styles itself a “concierge experience” rather than a shopping magazine in the vein of Lucky, Cargo and Shop Etc., they are clearly part of the competitive landscape, along with Departures and Robb Report. (Lucky and Cargo are part of Advance Publications Inc., parent of WWD.)
Alston, not surprisingly, chooses to view it differently. “The concept is really creating a new category and being the only ones in it,” she said. “We feel our readers have more in common with each other than with readers of other publications.”