- Lucia Moses, Mediaweek

Conde Nast’s Fairchild Fashion Group is losing an institution as its longtime chairman Patrick McCarthy prepares to step down at year’s end.
 
The change comes as part of a restructuring that has Conde Nast returning the operations of luxury fashion title W to the company's consumer magazine stable.
 
It had moved into b-to-b unit Fairchild briefly during the leadership of Richard Beckman, who is now CEO of e5 Global Media, parent of AdweekMedia (which includes Adweek).
 
McCarthy (pictured above)  joined Fairchild as a reporter in 1977 and has spent almost his entire career there, rising to chairman and editorial director in 1997. Over the years he was involved in the launches of W as well as Details and the erstwhile Jane.
 
Tom Wallace, Conde Nast’s editorial director, will name a new editor in chief of W. The remaining Fairchild properties, which include WWD and Footwear News, are being run by Fairchild’s newly named president and CEO Gina Sanders.
 
W has lagged its rivals this year with its ad pages down 22.7 percent to 251, vs. a 4.8 percent increase for the category overall, per the Mediaweek Monitor.