I’ve never been much of a fashion magazine guy (does the Victoria Secret catalog count?), but even I remember the whinging over Lucky when it first came out. Stylish young ladies adored it; magazine purists were offended by its total lack of editorial…anything. Just clothes, clothes, clothes. Clothes and stickers.
Ten years later, all fashion magazines have a little bit o’ Lucky in them–and Lucky hasn’t evolved at all, rendering it an also-ran in a category it practically invented. Condé Nast decided not to kill it along with Gourmet and some other underperforming titles last year, but it did fire the founding editor, Kim France, and bring in Brandon Holley, former editor of Jane, ElleGirl and Yahoo Shine.
So how do you revive Lucky without losing what made it special in the first place? Holley–a very patient, affable woman, I might add–shares her plan in my story for today’s Times, Brandon Holley: Dressing for a Revolution.
Douglas Quenqua 