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Elle's Website Has More Turnover Than A Pancake House
Elle magazine has more internal drama at its website than one fashion website deserves! Elle.com is perhaps Hachette's most visible site, so its success is an important totem for the company to prove it knows how to do digital things right. But after some ballyhooed comings and goings at the site that have been noted here over the past month, media types are wondering whether Hachette is planning a total restart of its online properties. Well, even more new turnover at Elle.com could mean just that! More »
magazines
Elle: Too Gay?
Fashion magazines have a female target audience. But the look of many fashion magazines is controlled, to a large extent, by gay men. Is that a problem for the magazines? It could be. The interests of the gays and fashion-conscious women overlap, but not perfectly (see the Perez Hilton empire, example A). But is it really possible for a women's fashion magazine to become too gay? A brief perusal of Elle tells us: it just might be! More »
obits
Hachette's Jack Kliger
Surprise, surprise. As we've been predicting for months, the chief exec of Hachette is stepping down. Charming former modelizer Jack Kliger bamboozled the press with talk of a multimedia revolution after taking over the French-owned magazine group in 1999; but the web strategy never moved beyond the stage of rhetoric. After nine years, he leaves behind him a motley group of hobbyist titles and Elle magazine—with neither critical mass in print nor much of a future online.
feuds
Is Hachette's "Digital Dunce" Really A Dignified Bedeviler Of Dilettantes?
Two commenters argued today that our coverage of the brewing civil war inside Hachette was way too harsh on digital VP Todd Anderman, who we dubbed a "digital dunce." Anderman, you'll recall, is said to have offended the sensibilities of deputies Joe Berean and Keith Pollock with a mind-numbingly-long series of reorganizations and content aggregation strategies. The case against Anderman as an all-thumbs manager was only cemented by his accidental big-screen projection, at a staff meeting, of some instant-messenger venting of work frustrations to his wife. But our comments say the fault for the disaster at Hachette lies not with Anderman but with fashion primadonnas like Zee and his allies, including former store-salesman Pollock. "Todd's reputation in this business is stellar and for you to put such a nasty hit piece like this is deplorable," one wrote. Well, his reputation isn't universally "stellar," judging from the fallout from Berean and Pollock's resignation, reported in our original post. But every feud has two sides, and far be it from us to ignore either. The pro-Anderman comments are reproduced after the jump. More »
magazines
Elle's Digital Dunce
After the severe bloodletting at Hachette's websites last month, one would expect remaining survivors at Elle.com, ElleGirl.com and Premiere.com might be grateful. Not so. In fact, there's been something of an uprising against digital vice president Todd Anderman (left), a clumsy transplant from Maxim Digital. As Women's Wear Daily is reporting, two of Anderman's top underlings have resigned: fashion director Joe Berean and Keith Pollock, executive editor of Elle.com and ElleGirl.com. Left unsaid? Pollock is the shopboy installed by Elle creative director Joe Zee, with whom he is said to be cozy, so his disgruntled exit from Anderman's employ will not soon be forgotten. Nor will the purported reason, a series of Anderman-instigated messes stretching back to an embarrassing incident involving the VP's laptop and a digital projector. More »
hachette
Joe Zee's Fabulous European Vacation
Elle creative director Joe Zee is popular among colleagues. "I seriously don't know anyone who doesn't love Joe: he was the best thing that could have happened for morale there." No wonder he's so beloved: the free-spending Zee took an additional five friends and colleagues to the Paris and Milan ready-to-wear shows this year—included among them his rumored paramour, a former shop girl Keith Pollock. The bill for Zee's grand European tour—probably over $500,000—comes at an uncomfortable time. Elle publisher Hachette just slashed its web staff and is giving up office space at its Midtown headquarters; and grumbly bean counters are beginning to focus on the master stylist's extravagance. "The costs are out of control, and the boyfriend who is said to be reporting on fashion shoots is really at a Four Seasons getting a massage on the company tab," writes the cost-conscious tipster. Pollock—a former salesman whom Zee had placed at Elle's website—was spared the recent online cuts. More »
nina garcia
Project Runway Panic Temporarily Calmed
By the end of last week things looked pretty dark in the world of Project Runway. Even setting aside the show's imminent move to Lifetime, the lawsuit between producer Weinstein Co. and former host network Bravo and the defection of Runway's executive producers, there were also alarming reports about Marie Claire maybe partnering with the show and judge Nina Garcia leaving Elle and possibly Runway itself. None of that has yet come to pass, and Women's Wear Daily informs everyone today that it's because Garcia is still negotiating with both Elle and Runway and because neither Elle nor sad Marie Claire have even started negotiations with Runway yet. WWD also reminds everyone that as bad as Elle is, at least the magazine is growing its circulation, while Marie Claire's circ dropped nearly 60,000 copies to 341,000 last year, so maybe the magazine is being used as a pawn by both Elle (in negotiations with Weinstein Co.) and Garcia (in negotiations with Elle). When you throw in the possibility of Bravo developing its own Runway imitation, there are some real opportunities here for groundbreaking research by ambitious game theorists. [WWD]
Elle's Expensive Creative Director
One expense line at Hachette that's been spared the French-owned magazine group's increasingly desperate cost-cutting: the travel and boyfriend-employing expenditure of Elle creative director Joe Zee. Embittered peons: gossip away.
One expense line at Hachette that's been spared the French-owned magazine group's increasingly desperate cost-cutting: the travel and boyfriend-employing expenditure of Elle creative director Joe Zee. Embittered peons: gossip away.
magazines
Out Comes The Hatchet At Hachette
When Jack Kliger took over Elle and Hachette's other US titles in 1999, he established himself as one of the magazine industry's few multimedia visionaries. The former Conde Nast publisher pushed Hachette's content onto EchoStar's interactive TV platform; Hachette's Car and Driver teamed up with the USA Network to produce a reality show spin-off of Cannonball Run, the cross-country car-race movie. And, when Hachette closed Elle Girl and Premiere magazines but kept their websites going, Kliger the charmer spun the cost-cutting exercise as an embrace of online media. So how's that going? Try utter disaster. We've been getting reports all day that the group has laid off almost its entire online staff. And here's one good reason: even Hachette's most successful online properties have the reach of a mid-sized blog, according to previously undisclosed web stats. (Oh, yes, and Hachette's Elle is about to lose its cherished role on Project Runway, the fashion-industry reality show.) If the future of magazines is some multimedia magic, as Kliger has been saying for a decade, Hachette has not much of a future; nor the Hachette boss himself. More »
rumormonger
First Signs Of Media Recession?
- Word is that 15 people have been laid off from Elle.com and other websites at French-owned magazine group, Hachette. We're working on a longer story about the travails of Elle and the other Hachette titles. Backstory to nick@gawker.com.
- That excellent video website, Super Deluxe, is being shut down. Sorry, it's being folded into another Turner web property, the site for Adult Swim. Nick Douglas is working on the story.
- More bad news for indie film makers: Hollywood studio Warner Brothers is closing down two boutique distributors. [Defamer]
magazines
What Was Nina Garcia Doing in the Hearst Building?
Fashionista spotted the recently ousted Elle editor (and Project Runway judge) "leaving the Hearst building, sprinting across the street before hailing a cab and trying to avoid eye contact with anyone as she left." Maybe she had a job interview! (Hearst publishes lots of ladymags, but not Elle.) [Fashionista]
let's play adbusters
Heroic Informant Reveals Hippie Hygiene Horror to 'Elle'
For reasons utterly unknown to your non-fashion mag-reading day editor, Elle has a lengthy feature this month about "Anna," the FBI agent provocateur (in the COINTELPRO sense, not the lingerie sense) who brow-beat some lazy, unemployed pot-smoking self-proclaimed "anarchists" into planning a mild act of terrorism they didn't actually have the resources or intelligence to pull off. The story is a largely sympathetic interview with "Anna" ("The car stank of body odor and sweat, thanks to the extremists rejection of regular bathing and hygeine products.... Vicks VapoRub, which Anna routinely dabbed inside her nose, made it barely tolerable."), who rented the would-be bombers a cabin and bought them bomb-making supplies and provided them with bomb-making plans and demanded they stick to the fucking plan the night they all decided they'd rather smoke pot and make pasta. If it sounds like we're condoning either terrorism or lack of personal hygiene, well, entrapment makes us queasier than hippie stink. Now the ringleader of the The Collective That Couldn't Shoot Straight faces 20 years in prison. So let's all make like anarchists and insert these little culture-jammy 'retractions' into copies of Elle! That'll help, right? Sigh.
'Elle' Show Contestents Compete For Real Job in Fake Office
Elle update! So, in re. today's story on the magazine and all the reality show fighting and Joe Zee and Nina Garcia—well, Ben Widdicombe's item on the upcoming Tyra-produced show about the mag mightn't have been totally accurate. The contestants cannot literally be in the way of any Elle staffers, because the show is being filmed in a recently constructed pretend office for the magazine, which has a notoriously shitty real one. All the other stuff we're still no clearer on.
Elle update! So, in re. today's story on the magazine and all the reality show fighting and Joe Zee and Nina Garcia—well, Ben Widdicombe's item on the upcoming Tyra-produced show about the mag mightn't have been totally accurate. The contestants cannot literally be in the way of any Elle staffers, because the show is being filmed in a recently constructed pretend office for the magazine, which has a notoriously shitty real one. All the other stuff we're still no clearer on.
life in elle
Reality TV Tearing 'Elle' Apart
Things are apparently a mess at fashion magazine Elle. A terrible reality show is has taken over the office, according to Ben Widdicombe. The show is called "Fashionista," it's produced by Tyra, and it will air on The CW later this year. It documents the search for a new assistant for creative director Joe Zee, even though he has an assistant already, one who is by all reports perfectly competent. So the show's contestants are just running around the office, getting in everyone's way with pointless "challenges," competing for a job they won't get. Meanwhile, an email we received from an anonymous tipster seems to suggest that maybe Mr. Zee, with his star-making new reality show on the way, might be helping to publicize the ouster of the mag's last reality show star, former fashion director Nina Garcia. More »
fashion
Nina Garcia Needs to Make It Work!
OK, let's just get it out of the way. Nina Garcia is in! Nina Garcia is Auf'd! She can leave the Runway! She can go to Elle! She looks like the child of Caroline Kennedy and Alf! Well, maybe the last one doesn't count. But you get my drift. Lots of people are jabbering on about Garcia, who has reportedly been yanked from her position as "fashion director" of Elle magazine, raising some uncertainty about her future as a Project Runway judge. Women's Wear Daily (this is their Watergate) says that Elle is trying to find her a phony "Editor-at-Large" masthead position, so she can stay on for the competition series' fifth and final season on Bravo (the show is moving to the Lifetime [Television for Women] network after that). More »
oh no
Nina Garcia Ankles 'Elle'!!
Oh dear, what a week for Project Runway. First, the show is moving to the cat-lady network and now judge Nina "fashiondirectorforEllemagazine" Garcia is apparently gone as Fashion Director of Elle, according to WWD. Elle threw a party for Simon Doonan and Nina was "notably absent." Garcia was reportedly in the office this morning, but gone by the afternoon. What does it mean? How will Heidi explain who she is next season?
magazines
