'Time' to Resurrect 'Style & Design'

Time magazine is resurrecting Time Style & Design, but this time with a less fashion-y focus and bigger online complement. Time published the fashion spinoff from 2003 until it pulled the plug in 2009, blaming the ad recession. Overseen by former Harper’s Bazaar editor in chief Kate Betts, Style & Design was unusual in that it aimed at an international audience (its 1.2 million circulation was roughly evenly split between the U.S. and overseas) and competed with fashion glossies for ads. Betts hung on with Time as a fashion correspondent after Style & Design folded. But she won't have anything to do with the relaunch, which will cover a wider range of topics. “It’ll have a kind of broader palate,” Time managing editor Richard Stengel said. “There will be stories about art and architecture and design and technology, and that sort of thing. The previous iteration of it was probably more focused on fashion than this one will be. In that sense, this represents the kinds of things I’m more interested in, the things I think the Time reader is more interested in.” Some ad buyers said they were reluctant to recommend Style & Design to luxury clients because of the magazine’s association with a mass, general news title. Style & Design also changed its annual frequency, going up to six before scaling back to four, which also threw off some buyers. Time’s worldwide publisher Kim Kelleher disputed that those factors made it hard to sell the last Style & Design, though. “It was quite a successful product for us and was only suspended when luxury advertising as a category went through a rough spot,” she emailed. “We did hear that one of the primary challenges was that it was almost a separate brand versus a brand that was complimentary. By having the new Time Style & Design completely edited and curated by the editors of the flagship Time, we are making it a true brand extension, more organic and more reflective of our cross-category coverage beyond fashion.” Style & Design will have a smaller print footprint this time around too. It’ll publish twice a year, in March and September, and go to 500,000 affluent subscribers in the U.S. It’ll also have its own channel on Time.com.

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'Time' to Resurrect 'Style & Design'

Fashion supplement published from 2003-2009

Lucia Moses

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