Working in the magazine industry, it has always startled me that there is no men’s magazine catering to an interest in style.
There’s a rank of men’s magazines that contains style features – GQ, Esquire, Arena – but that’s only a few pages. The rest is filled with normal lad’s mag fodder: a cursory summary of new movies, books, music, plus some girls. And a lot of the style coverage is either ridiculously expensive (a recent GQ featured a photo shoot of Loro Piana sweaters ranging from £500 to £2000) or is done through photo shoots where you can’t even see the clothes.
The second rank of magazines has come out recently and is dedicated to fashion, not style – GQ Style, Arena Homme Plus. How many men (not boys) do you know that follow fashion and the catwalks? That are quite happy to wear something for six months and then throw it away as untrendy?
There’s nothing in between as far as I can tell. Something that is all about style and takes a practical look at men’s clothes: where you can get designer clothes at high-street prices; which of the labels offer the best value for money; how to tell if your off-the-peg suit fits you; colour combinations and style leaders. Basically, much of what is done for women’s style, but for men.
If anyone finds anything along these lines, please tell me. Plus, if anyone has a few hundred thousand pounds and wants to invest in a start-up magazine, I might be interested. (The only recent discovery is the Arena Big Black Book, but that is only published once a year, in the US.)
Classic Style Magazine. It’s in its infancy, but shows great promise. http://www.classicstylemag.com
Valid points. I agree with you that there is a substantial gap in the market. GQ is the only Men’s magazine I read even though it sometimes feel like it’s not targeted towards me, namely because of very expensive stuff published in the magazine. Arena, FHM and all the similar “guys-magazines” have not interested me.
Just like you I have strong urges to start my own magazine or fashion site. As a matter of fact I’m fully ready. What’s missing is a partner and some capital!
The Japanese market does this so well. There are loads of magazine/book hybrids. Glossy things full of instructions, information etc – great stuff. I wish the average UK guy would try as hard as his Japanese counterpart.
Recently, I stumbled across Outside’s Go Magazine. A fairly new magazine, it only has style as a section and I have perused but a couple of their issues; I did, however, enjoy the eye candy. What do you think?
Thanks for pointing it out Scott. It looks rather pedestrian to me, though. Not much chance of anything original or journalistic.
Simon
I agree with post about Japanese mags. Even in Japanese they are years ahead of the Standard GQ Esquire drole. They are style manuals Check out Last or Leon the list goes on
The Rake! Its pricey but its exactly what you’re talking about. Cheers!
http://www.therakeonline.com/
-Mike
Yeah, thanks Mike. Since writing that post I now not only read the Rake but write for it every issue as well!
Search this site for The Rake to find examples.
Cheers
I know I’m a late comer to this thread, but I agree, there is simply nothing out there for men interested in pure fashion and style. Classic Style Magazine was the closest I found but they shut down over a year ago…broke my heart. What irks me the most about GQ and Esquire is the fact that all the models in all the ads are juveniles that don’t even shave yet and certainly could never afford the clothing they are modeling. I’m 51 and I don’t need to see 50 something models, just grown up men would be a great start.
Eh, to think that 500+€ sweaters were once considered by even yourself to be “ridiculously expensive”…You definitely got much more used to luxury products since then.
True. Obviously there’s a decent chunk of inflation in there, but I also think I’ve come to appreciate (as I could afford to try more at the top end and experience them) what it is and isn’t worth paying for with those kinds of pieces
Have you tried Valet? https://valetmagazine.co/
Yeah, some interesting pieces often, but not really what I want in a fashion magazine.
Interestingly, this article prompted The Rake to reach out to me, a couple of months after the had launched. In the intervening years that whole thing has grown, grown, and then imploded.
Interesting that you describe The Rake that way. I thought as much, but can’t find any info on what happened to them.
No it wouldn’t really be public, but they expanded way too fast with the online store and got into financial trouble. They’ve been looking for buyers ever since and still owe quite a lot of brands (mostly small craftsman) a fair bit of money.
Ah! That’s why so many of the items in their store were unavailable. Shame, it had promise, but became the very thing it railed against early on; It became a store with a magazine – I think you have actually written about that problem in another article.
True.