I had done some digging around town regarding Gordon’s work history and as far as I could discover he had no real qualifications to be working at Chic. He was not good with numbers; he was not a journalist, or a visual person; he lacked charm; he lacked ideas; and, as demonstrated by his shoes, he had no style. He was self-consciously heterosexual and made a big deal about liking a beer with the guys, and he seemed uncomfortable around strong and intelligent women, a quality that, paradoxically, seemed now to be considered an asset in an industry that published magazines targeted at women. A hierarchy had emerged with a great many males at the top, whom the editors-in-chief reported to. Unless you had someone very singular, like Bernard—who understood editorial, had great taste and could sell an ad in his sleep—I wasn’t sure that many of them were entirely necessary to the business. That is, unless the editor was an idiot, which, in my experience, none of us were.
A senior colleague asked me my opinion of Gordon and I tried hard to be tactful, as I often felt that there were spies around (most probably from the finance department, because if you were a fashion-magazine editor, the assumption was that you were a profligate numbskull and needed to be monitored like a repeat DUI offender).
‘He appears to be a man in search of a skill set,’ I said with an entirely straight face.
One day, however, Gordon was apparently determined to demonstrate that he did have a skill set. I had employed an award-winning art director from Paris to redesign the magazine, and the feedback had been very positive. Sales had slowly increased over the twelve months since it was overhauled, and both readers and advertisers agreed that Chic was looking good. But Gordon had been vociferously telling senior management that he hated the new font, an exercise designed, no doubt, to make them think he was a publishing whiz, and they were lucky to have him. About a week after his arrival, he called a meeting and said, ‘I think the magazine needs a new font.’
Trying to remain civil, I gave a measured response: ‘We only just designed the current one, paid several thousand dollars for it and had it copyrighted.’
I had even asked our Facebook readers if they liked the new typeface and the response was ninety-one per cent in favour of it. I reiterated this fact. But no. He wanted a new font.
‘What font would you like to see, Gordon?’ I asked, my careful inflection on the word ‘font’ making it sound strikingly like another four-letter word that ended in ‘nt’.
‘I don’t know, but not that,’ he retorted. Over time, I began to think that perhaps Gordon was something of a misunderstood prophet, because ‘I don’t know, but not that’ eventually became the standard management response to pretty much any question concerning anything to do with Chic’s direction or vision. Still, I had my own equivalent of that sentiment: if I were asked to nominate who would make a good manager, my answer would be ‘I don’t know, but not you’.
* * *
Furthermore, Gordon was by no means the worst blow-in who believed they could reinvent an iconic and revered fashion publication even though they had absolutely no previous experience with, regard for or indeed real interest in the product itself. In an attempt to disguise the fact that they had never before even picked up the magazine at a newsagency, had zero interest in women’s fashion and beauty, and basically considered it all a bit pretentious and vacuous, several of these new managers concocted many unsubstantiated theories about the glossies. In order to prove these hypotheses and gently coax us into new ways of thinking, expensive research groups were brought in to us—us being those in the teams that ran the magazine, day in and day out, and who knew what we were talking about. The driver behind all this was not about excellence so much as profit.
I recall one excruciating session where we were made to stick pages of various magazines, local and international, all around the boardroom and make comments on them, one by one, regardless of whether they were direct competitors. This was, of course, not even the first time I had been made to do this over the years. It was a stock standard management strategy to try to discover why a niche publication wasn’t selling as many copies as a tabloid, which was something that was about as obvious as Gordon’s awful short-sleeved shirt. The first six or so times I had been involved in this exercise, I had valiantly tried to glean some worthwhile information from it, as I was of course young and eager to please. After twenty-plus years in the industry, I knew that it was just a tedious waste of energy.
‘Now, what is this magazine doing right?’ asked Gordon triumphantly, pointing at a mid- to lowbrow populist title that covered celebrity scandals, dieting and landfill fashion.
‘They’re doing lots of things right, Gordon,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘But they launched on the premise of being mass. They accept mainstream ads, for dog food and hot chocolate. They have low content costs, the magazine’s full of handout press shots and staff Instagrams. Chic is a prestige fashion title. Our readers choose us for other reasons. That’s why we charge premium rates for our ad pages.’
But Gordon was not to be dissuaded by this feminine wilfulness and logic, by brand knowledge, or by the archaic idea that you should deliver value to the reader, on subjects that she wants to read about.
‘They’re doing something right,’ he said sagely, checking his BlackBerry, no doubt to see what time his wife wanted him home for dinner.
‘I know,’ I replied brightly, realising that a robotic response was what was required to get this meeting over and done with, so I could actually return to my desk and get the damn magazine to the printers in time. ‘They’re making more money than us.’
As I left the room, thanking Gordon for his insights and assuring him that I would follow his suggestion to go on Facebook and ask the readers to decide which cover they would like that month, it occurred to me, yet again, that if his salary, and quite a few other six-figure salaries, got sucked out of the system, the bottom line would look a lot healthier.
* * *
I often thought that a psychology degree should be a prerequisite in publishing, especially when I was sent managers who were borderline sociopaths. One the staff took to calling Caligula because, just as the Roman emperor made his horse a consul, if someone pleased him they would miraculously be promoted. When they consequently failed, due to lack of experience and resources, they’d be out.
I had felt his full wrath very early in his tenure, when I was hauled into his office and told that I was ‘terrifying’.
‘I have to speak to you about your behaviour,’ he began angrily, shuffling objects on his desk and unable to look me in the eye. His face was beet red and there was froth at the side of his mouth. He was the sort of person who verbally reminds you all the time that they are in charge, which is a globally recognised sign, to everyone but them, that they are horribly out of their depth.
‘What behaviour is that, Stephen?’ I responded evenly.
‘You terrify people.’
‘Who, exactly?’
‘Everybody.’
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘No; I can’t say. One person in particular is extremely traumatised. She says you scream at your staff!’ he screamed at me.
‘Well, I don’t. Ever. I would like to know who this person is, so we can address this.’
‘No, I promised her I wouldn’t tell, as she’s so scared of you.’
‘How will I address it if I don’t know who said it?’
‘No, I won’t say who; I promised!’ he spat.
‘Are there others, then? Can you give me any other names?’
‘Rhonda Moore in accounts.’
‘Oh. I’ve never met her.’
‘Yes, you see! She doesn’t want to meet you. Because she’s intimated by you!’ he snarled triumphantly, trying to intimidate me.
I’ve never been one to call on human resources departments for help, as I generally find them to have the people skills of a storm-trooper. And, anyway, the HR department was so frightened of Stephen that they would be of no eart
hly use in stopping his paranoid raving. I stayed quiet and made a mental note to call my lawyer if I managed to escape his office in one piece. Which I finally did.
* * *
After that savaging, I wandered shakily down to the fashion office, to take a few deep breaths and spend a few minutes doing what people assumed fashion-magazine editors did—that is, talk about clothes and shoes. The girls were sitting around a table, a pale yellow dress hanging on the rack next to them.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, desperately wanting a shot of vodka and a big cry but unwilling to let them see my vulnerability.
‘We’re workshopping this Chloé dress,’ said Marie in all seriousness, bless her.
This attitude, the core of what made Chic so special, was the reason I got into the business in the first place, and I wondered how the running of the magazine had come to this. Of course, commerciality and profitability are paramount in magazine publishing; you didn’t need to be an accountant to understand that. But intrinsic understanding of the product, of what we were producing and why, was disappearing.
There was so much competition, from both print and digital media, that in an overwhelming panic about revenue it was decided we had to address every media channel, immediately, with fewer staff, next-to-no budget and no time to create content with impact. I had less and less money and far fewer hands on deck. There were now only five full-time staff in the fashion office; when I started in 1985 there would have been seven or eight. I began to realise that this business model was becoming untenable.
‘So, what’s the outcome going to be for this Chloé dress?’ I asked, relieved to have something whimsical and inspiring to chat about for a few moments. My team rarely complained about the new frugality, and were constantly trying to come up with creative ways to produce shoots that were in line with it.
‘I know we don’t have the budgets anymore to go on location to Morocco, but Lucy has this wonderful idea of sourcing beautiful vintage prints and making a backdrop in the studio. There’d be a toucan, and lashings of coloured jewels and cushions; all a bit Barbara Hutton in her Dar Hosni souk period,’ said Marie.
The two junior fashion editors, Lucy and Anna, were outstanding team members, being hard workers who were always brimming over with ideas. They were earning just over the minimum wage, but their goal wasn’t to earn a lot of money but to get a foot in the door and be trained by the best in the business. Lucy’s last story, a beautiful Grimms’ fairytale–inspired shoot that had been shot in a country rose garden, had produced our best-selling cover in the last two years. There was no pecking order in our office when it came to talent. If you produced a wonderful shoot, article or layout, or had an innovative idea, your work was acknowledged. I was so proud of these young women, who had learned so much in the previous five years, who believed in the product we were selling and who were constantly striving to deliver top-quality editorial to the reader.
I spent the next highly enjoyable twenty minutes listening to the team’s ideas, working out the best freelance team to put on the job, brainstorming hair and makeup ideas, and isolating which clothes and accessories to use, taking great care to ensure that the all-important advertisers were covered. This wasn’t a hardship, as we were fortunate enough to have top-level advertisers and we were more than happy to feature their products.
Nothing was shot on a whim. I left it to my editors to call in the clothes they wanted for a shoot, but my job was to do the ‘run-through’; that is, the looks being shown to me in the stockroom for my approval. I knew these were often called ‘run-ins’ behind my back if there were too many ‘hot’ labels and not enough ‘warm’ advertisers. I would also have to put my foot down about the use of too many vintage items, especially jewellery. As a reader myself, I knew it was particularly vexing to see something you love in an editorial and then read in the caption that it was from a vintage store. First, I loathe pre-worn pieces, as they make me see dead people; second, the fact that they were one-offs was not helpful to the thousands of readers hankering to purchase that one darling floral-sprigged fifties skirt.
* * *
Lucky for me, I now had a digital-publishing meeting to attend. At the previous one we had a very long—and I thought mostly fantastical—discussion on how to make money out of our number of Facebook likes, a question that would of course prove to be one of the great conundrums of the early twenty-first century. Although we had launched the Chic website during my editorship, we had invested little money in it, and it was little more than a highly subscribed chat room.
I was a late adopter of social media—I had avoided joining Facebook as I felt I was busy, high profile and contactable enough as it was. Now, five years later, after seeing thousands of sunsets, dogs in baskets, and mawkish quotes that were wrongly attributed, I wish I hadn’t joined. The recently appointed online editor was absolutely appalled by my ‘off-line’ life, as she called it. I’ll be forever grateful that she opened a Twitter account for me because, three years later, it had become the main source of my global news and I was totally addicted, but a conversation we had about Tumblr raised a red flag at the beginning. She excitedly showed me how it worked and insisted that we start a Tumblr blog for Chic immediately. OK—what would be on it?
‘Well, look at this,’ she said, showing me something called ‘Hippie Kitchens’. I wasn’t remotely interested in hippies and hadn’t been in a kitchen in years. But I understood—we needed more content, to create a circular brand that touched people 24/7, across all platforms.
But there was one intrinsic problem: all the extra social-media content we needed to create required the same critical eye and editing process as did the magazine itself. The current staff were flat out coping with the volume of issues and supplements we already had, and we certainly weren’t going to be given any more assistance. We were expected to produce behind-the-scenes films of editorial shoots, daily editor’s blogs, and e-commerce click-through-and-buy-capacity interactive apps, and anything else related to a buzzword or function that a social-media consultant could wow management with in a costly presentation. However, they didn’t appreciate that every part of these innovations had to reflect and maintain the Chic brand. Nobody except the editorial team had the slightest idea of what standard of content needed to be produced, and the editorial team literally didn’t have the time to do it.
Given that there was no discernible digital budget, we were, it seemed, supposed to rely on free labour, such as bloggers and interns. Nobody welcomed my asking ‘Why are we throwing an expensive breakfast for bloggers whose taste is questionable, and who I wouldn’t normally feature in the magazine?’ I thought this question had merit. Apparently, I just didn’t understand that if these bloggers tweeted ‘I’m at a Chic breakfast’, we’d gain their thousands of followers—a target audience I wasn’t sure would be Chic readers anyway. Because I was then considered to be a digital philistine, I wasn’t allowed to raise other queries I thought to be pertinent, like ‘Do you think their online audience don’t read Chic precisely because they’ve chosen to read an alternative point of view instead?’
I could see that some bloggers were going to be a huge challenge to the uber glossies, but I was still wondering whether it would not be better to beat them rather than join them. Or, at least, to be able to hire and pay the ones who were appropriate for us, so that I wouldn’t have to hear stories from incredulous PRs about a blogger who, after she’d had too much free champagne at a sunglasses launch, threw up in the street and then posted the incident online. Paramount in all of this was that Chic retain its premium position in the fashion magazine world and continue to confidently deliver quality, not make lame grabs at things we didn’t quite understand in an attempt at quick fixes. I didn’t have all the answers, as things were unfurling so rapidly. But panic, like vomit, is never a strategic response.
* * *
It was with these thoughts that I walked reluctantly to the boardroom for the digital-publishing meeting. Once t
here, I glanced at the group around the table. There was a recently appointed brand-development manager who, aside from wearing way too much makeup and jewellery, served no earthly purpose because she didn’t actually understand the brand she’d been employed to develop. Also present was another new addition to the marketing department, Max. He was an integrated luxury publishing strategist who had come straight from school and spent six months working on developing a corporate-philosophy dossier that resulted in the slogan ‘We Light Up the World with Excellence’. He hadn’t actually been excellent enough to come up with it himself, though, having hired an expensive consultancy group to think it up, when all he really needed to do was ask the editorial staff. The document was intended to explain Chic’s core DNA to future staffers but, in truth, it was for the purpose of Max’s enlightenment. I privately wondered who was going to be working at Chic in five years to receive this proclamation of bullshit, because if our current readers had noticed the appalling fluffy high-street vest that the online team had that day posted on Tumblr without my approval, we were going to have no audience in about six months anyway.
Hilary was there, suggesting we produce a shoot featuring orange fashion, because she wanted to sell a banner ad to a company that made orange soft drinks. (This, incidentally, was the same Hilary who was the architect of ‘Puccigate’.) There was also a martinet from the finance department, who was wearing Nine West shoes, and who had decided in her infinite wisdom that no photographer was worth paying more than any other photographer, despite their obviously varying talents. A genius from the circulation department also sticks in my mind. She always brought her own piece of cake to meetings and had once said, ‘Don’t ask me’, and shrugged when I asked for an estimate of the sales for the December issue. On the upside in terms of staff, there was a handsome and well-dressed accountant called Sam, who understood my concerns and could evidently see the bigger picture. He resigned a few weeks later and joined a merchant bank in London.
Tongue in Chic Page 10