Bizarro World: when online goes print

As we’re all well aware, this so called game of fashion is ever changing – what’s old is new, what’s hot is cold and what’s up is down. Over the last few years, the world of fashion’s presence crept to the far reaches of the Internet: expanding its reach and potentially diluting its exclusivity.  But at the end of October, as the fashion weeks had finally concluded, Style.com –fashion Mecca to most, exclusively online (hence the name) – announced the premier of its first physical magazine, Style.com/Print. Yes, print. What a twist! Print is not dead, as many have come to believe with media’s current emphasis on all things virtual (e.g. web, blogging, Twitter, Facebook etc.).

Print has now become an extension of online and vice versa. Business of Fashion (you’ve heard of them right?) sat down with Style.com’s editor-in-chief, Dirk Standen who mentioned “there are possibilities for cross-selling across print and the web”. Media outlets are further extending their reach to the masses, and in the world of fashion, why not? Why not open its previously barred doors and let everyone have a peek, a taste of what goes on in a world that some can only dream of? Style.com/Print does exactly that: takes its reader deep behind the scenes of the Spring 2012 collections in a way that online could never achieve. The mag dives into the intricacies of fashion month; everything that the four jam-packed weeks of euphoria-inducing fashion entails, with the potential of becoming a bi-annual or quarterly publication.

What does such a shift mean? Even more exposure, more reach and more inclusive of the fashion world. Does that dilute it’s exclusivity? In this writer’s opinion: no, not necessarily. I still can’t walk into the tents and plop myself down in front row at NYFW. I still can’t shake Marc’s hand or air kiss Phoebe, commending them on their fabulous shows. I still can’t afford or even touch a Galliano gown or try on a Rodarte, Lanvin, or Vionnet creation. Sure, we all have been granted “access” to this world, but it’s still not accessible: we are all outsiders looking in. And I’m okay with it staying that way.

photo credit: hyperlinked
source: www.style.com, Business of Fashion

^AM