On Park & Bond, a new e-commerce site for designer men?s wear, Jim Moore, the creative director for GQ, can be found describing a red Calvin Klein turtleneck as ?something that can take that grey flannel suit and give it a little bon vivant?. The sweater, which costs $225, is tagged as a GQ Pick, inside the GQ Store.
In Esquire?s September issue, David Granger, the magazine?s editor in chief, invites readers to check out Cladmen.com, a site starting in October that will sell items like a $228 pair of chukka boots from Cole Haan or a $795 suit from Michael Kors, specifically selected by the magazine.
And fashionistas who are following the latest runway collections being shown this month have the opportunity, beginning this season, to buy some of those looks, from designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs and Derek Lam, right from the website of Vogue magazine. A floral printed romper from Von Furstenberg?s show can be ordered for $498. A leather coat from Jacobs costs $5,900. And as the site notes, ?Vogue may receive a commission on some sales made through this service.?
Fashion magazines are suddenly getting into the retailing business.
While the glossies have long had a reputation for accommodating the designers they cover, sometimes guaranteeing coverage to advertisers, a wave of new ventures and partnerships suggests they are willing to go even further by selling the designers? clothes.
It is a move that is raising some eyebrows, as magazines like Vogue, GQ and Esquire, struggling to survive in an online world, could potentially become competitors to stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York.
?There are no boundaries anymore,? said Howard Socol, the former chief executive of Barneys and now a consultant. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores that once looked at magazines as a way to sell to affluent customers could now look at them as threats. ?There?s competition for everything,? Socol said. ?But it is kind of interesting if you are a store, because you?re advertising in a magazine that is competing with you.?
The examples of magazines teaming up with e-commerce sites, almost all of them announced within the last several weeks, could practically fill a shopping mall. Vogue is working with Moda Operandi, a year-old site that provides an online version of a store?s trunk show, where customers can preorder runway looks. Style.com, which, like Vogue, is owned by Cond? Nast, will start selling clothes in November.
The magazines typically get a small portion of sales, or a fee for the number of shoppers they send to the e-commerce sites. ?What magazines have always done is to create desire in consumers,? said Granger of Esquire. ?The next logical step is to fulfill that desire by selling the product. If we don?t do it, somebody else is going to.?
Granger said that many magazines were making similar moves because retailers were starting to move in on their turf. The new Barneys catalogues look more like an issue of W, with clothes shown on New York celebrities, and shopping online at Net-a-Porter looks more like flipping through the pages of Harper?s Bazaar.
Esquire is starting the most ambitious new e-commerce venture from a magazine, called Clad. An insert in Esquire?s September issue resembled more of a catalogue than a magazine, with bar codes next to some items that readers should eventually be able to scan to buy.