Vogue: Once and Forever | Fashion's Next Big Thing | 4 AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Business Wars

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Vogue: Once and Forever | Fashion's Next Big Thing | 4) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (Business Wars) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

Business Wars episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: Vogue: Once and Forever | Fashion's Next Big Thing | 4

Author: Wondery
Duration: 00:40:34

Episode Shownotes

Once upon a time, it was Anna Wintour’s world and we were all just living in it. Now, social media creators are starting to drive the conversation around fashion trends – while legacy magazines like Vogue figure out how to stay relevant, and avoid losing touch with their readers. Washington

Post Style Writer Rachel Tashjian joins David to unpack the next wave of fashion journalism, and what the future of Vogue might look like. Listen to Business Wars on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season. Unlock exclusive early access by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. Start your free trial today by visiting wondery.com/links/business-wars/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Summary

In this episode of 'Vogue: Once and Forever | Fashion's Next Big Thing', David Brown and guest Rachel Tashjian delve into the changing landscape of fashion journalism, emphasizing how social media influencers are reshaping fashion authority and trends, previously dominated by legacy magazines like Vogue. They discuss the decline in print sales and the necessity for magazines to adapt by enhancing digital engagement and creating unique events that connect with their audiences. With a focus on trends emerging from social media platforms, the episode highlights the challenges and opportunities facing traditional fashion publications amid a democratized fashion culture.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Vogue: Once and Forever | Fashion's Next Big Thing | 4) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_07
Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Business Wars Beyond Meat vs. Impossible Burger early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple Podcasts. I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars.

00:00:43 Speaker_07
It's hard to say what's more glamorous, the world of fashion or the world of fashion magazines. For more than a century, we've been fascinated by those glossy pages and gorgeous photo spreads declaring what's in and what's out.

00:00:56 Speaker_07
In the early aughts, movies and TV shows ate this scene up, enveloping us in all the behind-the-scenes drama.

00:01:04 Speaker_07
After all, who could forget the film, The Devil Wears Prada, where Meryl Streep played the fiercely terrifying Miranda Priestly, an Anna Wintour type who lays down the fashion law.

00:01:14 Speaker_01
It's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact, you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. from a pile of stuff.

00:01:27 Speaker_07
But today, the rules have changed. Now, instead of the Miranda Priestleys of the world calling the shots, it's the TikTok generation redefining style, while the fate of print media hangs in the balance.

00:01:39 Speaker_07
Magazine revenue has been steadily declining for more than a decade, and it's become harder to stay ahead of fast-moving digital trends. fashion magazines, or at a major crossroads.

00:01:50 Speaker_07
As they experiment with new strategies in live events and social media, there are still a lot of questions about the future of this aging industry. Washington Post fashion writer Rachel Taschen has a front row seat to that runway show.

00:02:04 Speaker_07
She's written for Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and GQ, where she covered both the evolution of fashion trends and fashion media. You've heard her on Business Wars for our series Fast Fashion and Gucci versus Louis Vuitton.

00:02:16 Speaker_07
Well today, she's zooming out to talk about where the future of fashion journalism is headed. All that's coming up. Now streaming.

00:02:28 Speaker_09
Welcome to Buy It Now, where aspiring entrepreneurs get 90 seconds to pitch to an audience of potential customers. If the audience like the product, it gets them in front of our panel of experts. Gwyneth Paltrow. Anthony Anderson. Tabitha Brown.

00:02:42 Speaker_09
Tony Hawk. Oh, my God.

00:02:44 Speaker_08
Buy It Now. Stream free on Freevi and Prime Video. From Wondering comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it.

00:02:58 Speaker_08
I'm your host, Brandon Jinks Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:03:12 Speaker_07
Rachel Taschgen, welcome to Business Wars.

00:03:15 Speaker_02
Thank you so much, David.

00:03:17 Speaker_07
You've worked for some of the biggest names in fashion journalism, including Conde Nast, the publisher of Vogue, among other glossies. Was this always something you knew you wanted to do?

00:03:28 Speaker_02
Do you know what's funny, David? I was not a Vogue reader growing up. I found the universe of the magazine and the images so remote from my life, which was, you know, a young suburban millennial woman growing up in the 90s.

00:03:47 Speaker_02
that it just didn't grab me. It did not seduce me. It was not until later that I fell prey to its powers of seduction.

00:03:59 Speaker_07
Well, when did you first connect with fashion journalism? What was it that brought you there?

00:04:05 Speaker_02
Actually, it was the people who were writing about the worlds of magazines and designers.

00:04:10 Speaker_02
So I was such a fan growing up of Robin Gavon, who is my colleague at The Washington Post, and Judith Thurman, who writes for The New Yorker about fashion, and Kathy Horn, who at the time was at the New York Times.

00:04:25 Speaker_02
And my entree really to magazines like Vogue was through reading what these women made of the product and the media that a magazine like Vogue was creating.

00:04:38 Speaker_07
What is it about the nature of fashion journalism that perhaps you can shed some light on that helps us understand what is the appeal and the allure of it?

00:04:48 Speaker_02
You know, growing up and even into college, I should say, I mean, that's really when I was starting to become interested in fashion, but not through reading Vogue, again, through reading these other journalists.

00:04:59 Speaker_02
And I, you know, the experience I had looking at fashion magazines was that the photography seemed sort of surreal or unreal. The celebrities seemed very far away and the clothing seemed outrageously expensive and fantastical.

00:05:18 Speaker_02
There was a story that Kathy Horn did for the New York Times, I believe in 2007 or 2008, about the ways in which Anna Wintour, who is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, exerts her power.

00:05:33 Speaker_02
And I was fascinated to learn that a lot of the designers who are at these big luxury houses, the Louis Vuittons, the Diors, They go to Anna Wintour and they ask her, who should we hire to be the designer of this brand?

00:05:50 Speaker_02
And that sort of clicked into focus for me that actually these very fantastical, even at times bizarre, sometimes offensive images that seem to come from a place of pure rationality actually come from a very strategic expression of power.

00:06:12 Speaker_02
And not simply the decisions of this one editor, but the decisions that multiple editors at Vogue who work with Anna and the CEOs of these very large fashion companies, you know, are looking to this magazine and to this person to help them figure out what the world we live in should look like.

00:06:36 Speaker_07
That is so interesting because what you're describing is a kind of universe that sort of revolves around a completely different axis than that of reality, perhaps, that has its own sense of gravity and its own power.

00:06:48 Speaker_07
It actually sounds almost surreal as if there's a whole different universe out there.

00:06:53 Speaker_02
Absolutely. And I think the magic of fashion for me has always been when this parallel universe intersects with our own, whether that be the clothing that a first lady chooses to wear.

00:07:09 Speaker_02
And very often, first ladies have asked Anna Wintour or editors at Vogue for advice about what they should wear.

00:07:18 Speaker_02
Or even something where you have a fashion show that happens to comment on, either directly or coincidentally, comment on the issues that are happening in the world outside of fashion.

00:07:33 Speaker_07
You talk about Anna Wintour. You think of all of the iconic fashion editors-in-chief. I wonder, I mean, we've of course talked about Carmel Snow from Harper's Bazaar's early days. Edna Woolman Chase, the opulent Diana Vreeland.

00:07:50 Speaker_07
Out of all these sort of icons in fashion journalism, who's really stuck with you?

00:07:58 Speaker_02
Well, I would say personally, I feel sort of an affinity with Diana Vreeland. The way in which she looked at the 1960s, and I think she had a sense of history that was really appealing.

00:08:13 Speaker_02
But what I find fascinating about Anna Wintour is that for much of the world, she is fashion. She's been the editor of Vogue the entire time I've been alive.

00:08:25 Speaker_02
And it's hard to think of anyone in any industry that has that kind of longevity, whether it's a CEO at a Fortune 500 company, a fashion designer, or a creative person, an artist even.

00:08:39 Speaker_02
And I think that, you know, if you ask people, who are you aware of in fashion? A lot of the names Coco Chanel, you know, has been dead for a long time. Louis Vuitton. Most people don't know who that is, even if they know who the brand is.

00:08:55 Speaker_02
But Anna is synonymous with fashion, even with, you know, the sunglasses and the bob, even visually. And I find that really fascinating.

00:09:04 Speaker_07
Now, have you ever had a chance to meet Anna Wintour yourself?

00:09:08 Speaker_02
I have not.

00:09:11 Speaker_07
No. Would you want to meet Anna Wintour?

00:09:14 Speaker_02
Of course.

00:09:15 Speaker_07
Yeah?

00:09:15 Speaker_02
Yeah, of course.

00:09:16 Speaker_07
If you could, what would you ask her? What would you want to find out from her? I wonder if there's even a way to get to know someone like Anna Wintour if you're an outsider or if you're a journalist who's trying to document what's going on.

00:09:30 Speaker_02
Well, I think what you hear from a lot of people who know her is that she's a very warm and caring person. And you also hear about her leadership styles, very direct and efficient.

00:09:44 Speaker_02
She is someone who has a lot of power and seems very good at collecting and gaining, in fact, more power. as the media industry that she is such a large part of, you know, declines in some ways in power and traditional sort of holders of positions.

00:10:04 Speaker_02
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Many of them are not, you know, working anymore. So, I mean, what does power mean to her and why is that important? I think is such an interesting question.

00:10:15 Speaker_07
Well, what about the magazines themselves? Are they how are they performing today?

00:10:20 Speaker_02
I mean, you know, Print is certainly not what it used to be.

00:10:25 Speaker_02
I can tell you when I worked at Vanity Fair, which was about 10 years ago, it was shortly before I had arrived that the very famous Katie Holmes Scientology expose had been on the cover of the magazine.

00:10:38 Speaker_02
And I think we had these charts that were passed out each month that we each had pinned to our desks.

00:10:45 Speaker_02
And the newsstand sales for that issue, which I believe came out in 2009, explaining the ways in which Tom Cruise had allegedly held these auditions for his wives, that magazine on the newsstand, so this is not counting subscribers, I believe sold over a million and a half copies.

00:11:04 Speaker_02
Wow. And by the time I left Vanity Fair, which was in about 2017, you know, there were some issues that sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies.

00:11:16 Speaker_07
Gee whiz. Well, that says a lot right there. Who is, though, buying those copies today? Who's consuming the content from the publication nowadays?

00:11:26 Speaker_02
I think most people are reading magazines online. And you do see a lot of, you know, at a lot of fashion magazines, especially the digital presence of the magazine has become totally essential.

00:11:39 Speaker_02
You know, so many people are consuming Vogue simply by looking at its Instagram presence.

00:11:46 Speaker_02
But I think, you know, if you also look at a magazine like The Cut, which is New York Magazine's fashion magazine, they've just decided to launch a standalone print issue.

00:11:55 Speaker_02
So, it is clear that there's at least, you know, some kind of readership for these magazines, and I would also say that it indicates that fashion brands, who are big advertisers, see a return on their investment if they are advertising in these magazines, because that's how, you know, you're able to find money to make a magazine these days.

00:12:19 Speaker_07
You know, once upon a time, El and InStyle were considered major competitors to Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. That didn't last. Why not, do you think?

00:12:31 Speaker_02
You know, I think part of it is the specifics of the companies that own them. So I don't think it's, you know, I wouldn't say it's anything to do with any specific editor or publisher or anything like that.

00:12:43 Speaker_02
But, I mean, Elle is, under Nina Garcia, I think has really broadened its scope and has kind of become a foil for Vogue in a way.

00:12:52 Speaker_02
to say, you know, we're very interested in politics and feminism and the whole life of a woman, not simply, you know, what she wears.

00:13:01 Speaker_02
Although, of course, there were always lots of different, there've always been lots of different kinds of articles in Vogue, but that's sort of is what shifted at something like Elle Magazine.

00:13:11 Speaker_02
And you can see that that formula or that idea really has traction because of the performance of something like The Cut, which is just, I mean, they generate conversation with their stories and their coverage of fashion in a way that very few other magazines do in this day and age.

00:13:30 Speaker_07
Has social media become a bigger threat to Vogue than competing publications, would you say, or no?

00:13:38 Speaker_02
Well, I think yes, in the sense that fashion is an industry that likes to gatekeep, and it's an industry that is a lot about power and insecurity.

00:13:50 Speaker_02
You know, I mean, part of the reason why people like Fashion Week is because you get to sit in a room and some force has decided that you get to sit in one seat and someone else gets to sit in another.

00:14:03 Speaker_02
You know, and so people like to sort of, oh, OK, like this is where I stack up and that's where he stacks up.

00:14:08 Speaker_02
And, you know, so and I think social media in fashion and especially in fashion media, as it is anywhere, is a force that disrupts that, that says, well, I don't have to wait for someone to say that my opinion matters for my opinion to matter.

00:14:25 Speaker_02
And, you know, Vogue, like any other magazine, has had to adapt to the landscape of other people, you know, anointing various designers and models and so on and so forth with power and influence, even if they may not agree with that.

00:14:42 Speaker_02
I mean, it's interesting to look at the case of someone like Kim Kardashian, who for years, you know, it was rumored that she really wanted to be on the cover of Vogue. And, you know, would she or wouldn't she be?

00:14:56 Speaker_02
And I remember the day that that Vogue cover came out in which she and Kanye West were posing for Annie Leibovitz in Paris. And we at the Vanity Fair office were shocked.

00:15:07 Speaker_02
And a lot of commenters, I recall, on Instagram said, you know, I'm unsubscribing to Vogue.

00:15:13 Speaker_02
And it's crazy to think that, one, that we put that much trust in a magazine to tell us what to think and believe, but also that a magazine in this decade still has that amount of sway, you know, that people seem to believe that it

00:15:33 Speaker_02
is an arbiter, and it is.

00:15:36 Speaker_07
Let's take a short break. Our guest is Rachel Taschen, fashion writer for the Washington Post style section. When we come back, we're going to find out what Vogue is doing to stay at the top of the style pyramid. Stay with us.

00:15:51 Speaker_06
For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic scenes in American history.

00:15:57 Speaker_06
Inspired by the hit podcast, American History Tellers, Wondery and William Morrow present the new book, The Hidden History of the White House.

00:16:04 Speaker_06
Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, the world-altering decisions, and shocking scandals that have shaped our nation.

00:16:12 Speaker_06
You'll be there when the very foundations of the White House are laid in 1792, and you'll watch as the British burn it down in 1814.

00:16:18 Speaker_06
Then you'll hear the intimate conversations between FDR and Winston Churchill as they make plans to defeat Nazi forces in 1941.

00:16:26 Speaker_06
And you'll be in the Situation Room when President Barack Obama approves the raid to bring down the most infamous terrorist in American history.

00:16:34 Speaker_06
Order The Hidden History of the White House now in hardcover or digital edition wherever you get your books.

00:16:41 Speaker_05
How did Birkenstocks go from a German cobbler's passion project 250 years ago to the Barbie movie today? Who created that bottle of red Sriracha with a green top that's permanently living in your fridge?

00:16:53 Speaker_05
Did you know that the Air Jordans were initially banned by the NBA? We'll explore all that and more in The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-War. This is Nick. This is Jack.

00:17:04 Speaker_05
And we've covered over a thousand episodes of pop business news stories on our daily podcast. We've identified the most viral products of all time and their wild origin stories that you had no idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos.

00:17:19 Speaker_05
Come for the products you're obsessed with, stay for the business insights that are gonna blow up your group chat. Jack, Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers, best-selling video game of all time, how'd they do it? Nintendo never fires anyone, ever.

00:17:31 Speaker_05
Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the best idea yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

00:17:48 Speaker_07
Hi, welcome back to Business Wars. Our guest is Rachel Taschen. She is fashion journalist at The Washington Post, who also runs her own fashion newsletter, Opulent Tips.

00:17:58 Speaker_07
Rachel, I have to ask, as someone who's been in the business for a while now, what exactly is a fashion magazine these days? Do you think of it as a print magazine, a website, a kind of store, perhaps a production company, all of the above?

00:18:13 Speaker_07
How do you think of fashion magazine, in quotes?

00:18:16 Speaker_02
Well, a lot of traditional magazines, I think, are really expanding their sense of identity in order to survive in this landscape where, you know, print sales and advertising are both in decline.

00:18:32 Speaker_02
And, you know, it's interesting to see how many magazines have begun, for example, doing events, you know, doing festivals.

00:18:41 Speaker_02
And also creating these subscriber tiers in which people who pay in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars might have special access to the editors of the magazine or the goings on of the magazine.

00:18:56 Speaker_02
I've also seen, you know, there are fashion magazines that create products that, you know, create merchandise or that have tried to start stores. I mean, I think we're in an era of big experimentation.

00:19:10 Speaker_02
And then, of course, you also have a number of people who are starting their own sort of independent, you know, substack newsletters that in some ways, you know, when I read them, it really reminds me of reading

00:19:23 Speaker_02
Glamour magazine or the market pages of Vogue 20 years ago.

00:19:27 Speaker_07
Interesting. Why do you think that is? People feel unleashed. They have more autonomy. They can say some of the things that they might not otherwise. Or what do you think is going on there?

00:19:37 Speaker_02
Well, I think we're in a moment where people really trust the recommendations of someone who they feel like they know. And I wonder if is it easier to trust an individual than it is to trust an institution?

00:19:53 Speaker_07
That's interesting. But it also seems very, very much in line with the tumultuousness surrounding this transition from print to digital. And you talk about the experimentation, which sort of seems to be hand in hand with that transition.

00:20:09 Speaker_07
Do you think that Vogue has finally caught up with some of the leaders in that digital transition? I wonder how you would gauge where they stand now with their online presence.

00:20:21 Speaker_02
I think their online presence is less about the day-to-day sort of articles that they're publishing, and it's more about the world that they are creating when you go to their website.

00:20:32 Speaker_02
What Vogue, I think, provides digitally is this aspirational and I think even witty universe. You know, they, for example, did a project recently on their website in which they photographed, I think, a dozen dogs belonging to

00:20:50 Speaker_02
celebrities from Demi Moore to the vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. And they put the dogs sort of on mocked up Vogue covers and replaced the V with a D. And I thought, you know, that's really clever.

00:21:05 Speaker_02
That's a great way to sort of be in the cultural conversation and even sort of drive it without necessarily saying, hey, you know, we're going to

00:21:13 Speaker_02
sort of weigh in on what Kamala Harris is wearing or, you know, this designer change at this going from this house to that house means.

00:21:21 Speaker_02
I mean, they still do those things, but I think they want to have a sort of like broader, almost like a feeling of commentary rather than, you know, or reflecting the culture rather than just sort of demystifying or explaining it.

00:21:36 Speaker_07
Do you think that other fashion magazines are trying to riff on it or take a lesson from it? And I wonder what that lesson would be unless you run the risk of just sort of imitating, I suppose.

00:21:50 Speaker_02
Well, I think if you look at, I would say, two of the big competitors to Vogue are The Cut and Harper's Bazaar. Both of them are taking very different approaches to modernizing in a way.

00:22:04 Speaker_02
I mean, I worked at Harper's Bazaar for a number of years, in fact, before I was at The Washington Post.

00:22:10 Speaker_02
You know, Samira Nasser, who's the wonderful editor-in-chief there, had a very specific vision of the woman she wanted to speak to with her magazine. And I think she's still very invested in the print product.

00:22:25 Speaker_02
And there were so many people who read the magazine in print. That was really interesting to me, even though, you know, the digital presence of the magazine is also quite important.

00:22:36 Speaker_02
And then, you know, if you look at something like The Cut, again, you have, you know, a fashion magazine led by Lindsay Peoples, who is in her mid-30s.

00:22:46 Speaker_02
And she, again, is looking to print as an important product for her, even as, again, you know, has a fantastic digital product. So it's interesting to see everyone is sort of like turning back to these old-fashioned ideas, but trying to refresh them.

00:23:03 Speaker_02
And I would say I'm, you know, biased in the case of Harper's Bazaar because I worked there for a number of years.

00:23:09 Speaker_02
But I'm very interested in what the Cut and Harper's Bazaar are doing with their print magazines and also with their digital presences to sort of say, hey, actually, it seems like this thing we felt like wasn't really working anymore.

00:23:24 Speaker_02
We can do this in a fresh way. And maybe people do want to read print magazines again.

00:23:31 Speaker_07
You know, I think when people think of events and the fashion world, probably the Met Gala is the one that most frequently comes to mind.

00:23:41 Speaker_07
Although it's not an official Vogue event, and I think sometimes people get a little confused if they're not in that circle, because this has been under Anna Wintour's orchestration since, what, 1995 or something like that.

00:23:55 Speaker_07
This is a fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And this has become a kind of it event over the years, something for the rich and the famous, emphasis on the rich.

00:24:08 Speaker_07
What has this done for the Vogue brand over the years and maybe for fashion journalism more broadly? I don't know. How would you characterize its importance?

00:24:18 Speaker_02
It's incredibly important. It's another example of the ways in which I think Vogue has become synonymous with fashion.

00:24:28 Speaker_02
I think that probably more people are aware of the clothing worn at the Met Gala than they are of the clothing that comes down a runway in Paris, Milan, London, or New York.

00:24:42 Speaker_02
I think that is actually that red carpet, which is highly orchestrated, is kind of how a lot of people learn about fashion designers and how many people's perception of glamour and ostentation is formed in the United States and probably even around the world.

00:25:04 Speaker_07
Now, can you say something about Vogue's own live event strategy? What kind of events are they hosting to sort of remain front and center in fashion?

00:25:12 Speaker_02
They've really invested a lot in events over the past two years. And one of their new initiatives is called Vogue World, and it is an in-person runway show. You know, anyone can buy tickets. The tickets are quite expensive.

00:25:29 Speaker_02
They are sometimes more than $1,000.

00:25:33 Speaker_02
And they'll take over, for example, a street in New York, and they will have an interesting mix of models and celebrities and athletes who are walking down the runway in clothing that is not, it's not new clothing.

00:25:46 Speaker_02
It might be clothing that's coming into stores soon or that already is in stores. So that's something that's sort of, usually at a fashion show, the clothes have never been seen before. So this is kind of an orthodox thing.

00:25:58 Speaker_02
But it's sort of like, you know, a little bit Coachella. It's a little bit Burning Man, a little bit of the New Yorker festival. And then the other event that they have done for the past couple of years is called Forces of Fashion.

00:26:11 Speaker_02
And it's a way to sort of bring the magazine to life. There are interviews with designers, but also with the editors and photographers who make the magazine.

00:26:21 Speaker_07
You've talked about these events as, I believe you said, a linchpin for maintaining the mystique in a world where magazines have all but lost their luster. How is that working out for the brand?

00:26:32 Speaker_02
You know, the attendees at these events, when I've gone to them and spoken to them as a reporter, they seem quite enthusiastic to be there.

00:26:43 Speaker_02
I think there is in some cases a sort of feeling of cheerleading for fashion that some industry professionals feel they need to perform.

00:26:52 Speaker_02
And then I think for a lot of these sort of attendees who are not necessarily in the fashion industry, but who might be buying these tickets, this feels like a way to participate in a world that is otherwise quite remote and inaccessible.

00:27:08 Speaker_02
To go to a fashion show or see a fashion designer, you have to be invited, whereas this provides a kind of different access.

00:27:17 Speaker_02
To me, it's interesting to see a magazine kind of double down on or lean into a reputation which was minted, you know, in many ways decades ago in order to move forward.

00:27:35 Speaker_02
It seems to be working from the people I've spoken to anecdotally who are attending, but it also feels like, for example, at the Forces of Fashion, it took place a year ago, happened at the Conde Nast office building, and so many people I spoke to brought up the devil wears Prada.

00:27:55 Speaker_02
And I do think that that sort of cinematic appreciation of fashion is what keeps a lot of these subscribers or attendees coming back for more.

00:28:07 Speaker_07
Interesting. I know Mark Holgate, who is Vogue's fashion news director, said that readers want more on Vogue behind the scenes. And you think about all the movies and TV shows that have centered on fashion magazines over the years.

00:28:22 Speaker_07
You mentioned The Devil Wears Prada, of course. Was there a specific film or TV show that served as your touchstone for what you hoped life at a magazine would be like when you got started?

00:28:32 Speaker_02
I would say it was probably The Devil Wears Prada. Yeah, and a little bit of Sex and the City.

00:28:37 Speaker_07
Uh-huh. How close was it to that once you actually got in there?

00:28:42 Speaker_02
I would say it was pretty close, actually. Really? In the sense that, you know, Vanity Fair, where I first worked at Conde Nast, is not really a fashion magazine, but I was so intimidated every day that I went into work there.

00:29:02 Speaker_02
And what they said about the cafeteria being a very intimidating place is also really true. But everyone I worked with seemed to have seen every movie, read every book, had just had dinner with Maureen Dowd. Oh my gosh.

00:29:25 Speaker_02
It was very intimidating the amount of knowledge and curiosity that everyone who worked there had. And I think that was also, you know, Graydon Carter was at the was the editor at the time. And I think that was an environment that he he created.

00:29:41 Speaker_07
That is absolutely fascinating. Well, let me ask you, what do you think the next iteration of media about fashion magazines might look like? You know, the Vogue being Vogue era, if you will.

00:29:51 Speaker_02
I think that the upcoming generation of editors-in-chief, so women who are now in their 30s, these are incredibly driven and ambitious women, many of whom worked with Anna Wintour, actually.

00:30:13 Speaker_02
And I think that will Vogue be synonymous with fashion after Anna leaves? I don't know, but I do know that there is a generation of women that understands the power of image and is really interested in journalism and storytelling.

00:30:34 Speaker_02
And it will be perhaps interesting to to live in an era in which there are five or six powerful people as opposed to just one.

00:30:44 Speaker_07
That is so interesting. We have to take a break. Racial Taschen has covered fashion for GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair and now The Washington Post.

00:30:52 Speaker_07
We're going to look at how fashion magazines are dealing with the changing tides of tech and culture when Business Wars returns. Stay with us.

00:31:02 Speaker_00
This is the emergency broadcast system. A ballistic missile threat has been detected inbound to your area.

00:31:07 Speaker_04
Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert. What do you do next? Maybe you're at the grocery store. Or maybe you're with your secret lover. Or maybe you're robbing a bank.

00:31:17 Speaker_04
Based on the real-life false alarm that terrified Hawaii in 2018, Incoming, a brand new fiction podcast exclusively on Wondery Plus, follows the journey of a variety of characters as they confront the unimaginable. The missiles are coming.

00:31:32 Speaker_04
What am I supposed to do?

00:31:33 Speaker_04
Featuring incredible performances from Tracy Letts, Mary Lou Henner, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Paul Edelstein, and many, many more, Incoming is a hilariously thrilling podcast that will leave you wondering, how would you spend your last few minutes on Earth?

00:31:47 Speaker_04
You can binge-in coming exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

00:31:54 Speaker_06
For years, American Scandal has taken you deep inside the biggest controversies and shocking events in U.S. history. And now you can listen to exclusive seasons on Wondery Plus.

00:32:04 Speaker_06
Go beyond the headlines with jaw-dropping stories and immersive reporting that unveils the complex truth behind these scandals. In our exclusive season, The Hare Krishna Murders, dive into the twisted world of a rogue sect of Hare Krishnas.

00:32:17 Speaker_06
When devotees mysteriously disappear, the trail leads to a dark web of deceit, greed, and even murder.

00:32:23 Speaker_06
Or explore the sordid tale of Enron, as we reveal the shocking depths of corporate fraud that led to one of the biggest bankruptcies in American history.

00:32:31 Speaker_06
From political conspiracies to corporate corruption, these in-depth investigations will keep you on the edge of your seat. Experience American Scandal like never before, with exclusive seasons that you won't find anywhere else.

00:32:42 Speaker_06
And on Wondery+, you can binge entire new seasons before they're publicly available.

00:32:47 Speaker_06
Start your free trial of Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify to start listening today and uncover the real story behind America's most notorious scandals.

00:33:06 Speaker_07
Welcome back to Business Wars. Our guest is Rachel Taschen, a writer at the Washington Post who has explored trends in both fashion and fashion magazines, the journalism side of things.

00:33:16 Speaker_07
Rachel, how has the job of covering fashion changed throughout your career?

00:33:20 Speaker_02
Well, I would say a decade ago, when I first started writing about fashion, it was much more about the clothes. And now it's become about the stories around the clothes. So, like, what are the things that are happening between fashion shows?

00:33:37 Speaker_02
What are the things that are happening on social media? You know, so many trends now, and I don't just mean the sort of like micro trends, things with core and that sort of thing. come up on social media.

00:33:48 Speaker_02
Like a lot of conversations now and changes in fashion happen on social media. And I think that that's something that, you know, a decade ago you wouldn't have even thought about.

00:34:00 Speaker_02
I mean, a lot of these platforms like TikTok didn't even exist five, well, six years ago.

00:34:05 Speaker_07
Sure. Right. Well, can you say a little bit more about that, but that this influencer culture and I guess more specifically TikTok, how has that affected the ways that publications like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar cover fashion?

00:34:17 Speaker_02
Well, it's an interesting, I think, challenge to their authority that, you know, you have at Vogue for a long time, for example, or really any other fashion magazine.

00:34:28 Speaker_02
I mean, you would get together after the season of fashion shows and everyone would sit in a room and you would probably have like

00:34:35 Speaker_02
you know, hundreds of photographs that you or your assistant had taken, and you would put them into groups and say, OK, suede is really important. And, you know, a lot of people are doing wool coats in Glen plaids.

00:34:48 Speaker_02
And you and your team of editors would sit together and identify these trends based on the photographs that you took at the show.

00:34:56 Speaker_02
You know, over the past decade, social media has made it such that, you know, a lot of brands are live streaming their fashion shows.

00:35:04 Speaker_02
So, you know, just sit there as an editor and try to take pictures and make sense of it that way is like no one does that anymore.

00:35:12 Speaker_02
And anyone can sort of look at these shows and say, actually, I'm identifying something here that isn't necessarily being talked about in magazines. And that's been a huge

00:35:23 Speaker_02
I think, issue for editors to contend with, of like, OK, I've never heard of this person before. I don't know who they are. Do I trust them? Do I feel like they know what they're talking about?

00:35:34 Speaker_02
And at the same time, do my own questions about their trustworthiness or my own skepticism about them, does that matter if, you know, millions of people are watching their videos and responding to them?

00:35:49 Speaker_02
So, I think that's been a real shift in power and it's also just meant that there's so much more to pay attention to.

00:35:58 Speaker_07
So, we're talking about so much for the system that Miranda Priestly championed? I mean, we're talking about that level of disruption?

00:36:05 Speaker_02
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Although I would say, I've gone to at this point, hundreds of fashion shows.

00:36:13 Speaker_02
And I would say there are very few designers at this point who make something and put it on a runway and it ends up on Shein or Forever 21 or in Macy's or something. That trickling down of ideas really doesn't happen anymore.

00:36:34 Speaker_02
It's more that consumers are making sense of this glut, frankly, of product that they're seeing and trying to rationalize why they're seeing what they are.

00:36:46 Speaker_07
That is really interesting. And boy, does that speak to the change in the dynamics of the industry.

00:36:53 Speaker_07
It seems like there is a sort of cultural shift toward accessibility and fashion that social media has brought that, well, obviously, it didn't exist in the Devil Wears Prada version of reality. But I wonder how magazines,

00:37:07 Speaker_07
can remain high-end when most consumers are interested in, well, buying what their favorite TikTok creator is wearing, for example, or when you have that kind of democratization of trend-setting, if you know what I'm saying.

00:37:22 Speaker_02
Well, I mean, I think that for magazines, the duty is probably to create an original and inspiring world within their pages or on their website. That's probably what they can do now. And in a way, that's what they've always done.

00:37:38 Speaker_02
It's just that no one was challenging their authority until the past decade. And I think that, you know, I don't know that consumers are looking now for authority per se.

00:37:52 Speaker_02
I mean, I think there is just so much skepticism in the media, you know, whether it's a fashion magazine or a newspaper. The best probably that fashion magazines can do at this point is to create their own consistent point of view.

00:38:09 Speaker_02
and hope that that resonates with an audience, which will likely be a more niche audience than existed in the past.

00:38:19 Speaker_07
What is the next iteration of fashion magazines as you see them?

00:38:23 Speaker_02
Well, I could see, I mean, for the past decade, actually, a number of magazines have talked about wanting to be like movie studios. And Conde Nast even had a sort of department called Conde Nast Entertainment, which they put a lot of money into.

00:38:39 Speaker_02
And the idea was to create branded content and to turn magazine stories into films and in some cases make their magazines, which are often called brands there, into entertainment properties and into, you know, movies or TV shows.

00:38:57 Speaker_02
So that's something that I think, you know, a lot of magazines have been trying to figure this out for a number of years. You know, people are very attached to things like The Devil Wears Prada. I mean, I know there's a musical

00:39:10 Speaker_02
forthcoming version of that. And there's apparently a sequel in the works. So it does seem that people are interested in this idea of seeing or taking in entertainment that is based on fashion.

00:39:26 Speaker_02
But I think that's a lot more complicated to do than we may realize. And that's why we haven't really seen a successful, oh, it's a magazine cover, but it's also a movie or a video.

00:39:39 Speaker_02
I mean, very often when you see magazines do something like that, it's like, okay, well, this is just a picture that moves. I'm not really sure why. What is this telling me?

00:39:51 Speaker_02
So I think we're still in the early stages of something like that in terms of how a magazine might adapt to this world of entertainment.

00:40:03 Speaker_07
I have to ask because you would think that given the history of fashion and fashion journalism, especially these magazines, there must be a kind of a within the culture itself, people pining for the old days, you know, talking about what has been lost in this overall transition or no.

00:40:23 Speaker_07
I mean, overall, what do people think about the direction that Vogue in the broader industry of fashion magazines?

00:40:28 Speaker_02
Well, when I talk to people who are in their teens and their early to mid-twenties about fashion, they are incredibly nostalgic for a period during which they were not even born.

00:40:43 Speaker_02
And there is so much fascination with designers from the 1990s and early 2000s.

00:40:50 Speaker_07
Interesting.

00:40:51 Speaker_02
To the extent that there is very often less awareness about designers of their own generation, which I find really fascinating. And I think there is a lot of, as you say, pining for an earlier era. And I think there are, you know,

00:41:08 Speaker_02
Interesting things happening now, but it's harder for magazines, I guess, to wrap their arms around those things or those characters because, you know, it is harder to sort of explain who to a broad audience who a young, you know.

00:41:25 Speaker_02
independent, struggling fashion designer from London is, you know.

00:41:30 Speaker_02
Whereas now, like, the greatest, probably the greatest fashion designer of the 21st century is considered to be Alexander McQueen, who was at one time a young, he's no longer with us, but at one time for much of his career was a young, struggling, independent fashion designer from London.

00:41:47 Speaker_02
So, I think it can be difficult to explain contemporary culture and fashion to a mass audience.

00:41:55 Speaker_02
And when you, you know, even when I go to these events, you know, that Vogue has where anyone can buy tickets, very often, you know, the attendees who have spent thousands of dollars to be in these rooms, you know, they'll say, oh, there aren't really any good designers today.

00:42:11 Speaker_02
You know, I'm much more interested in vintage Versace and old Dior and so on and so forth.

00:42:18 Speaker_07
How are you feeling about the future of fashion media? Do you think we'll have a Vogue September issue in five years? Or will all this take on a completely different form, maybe unrecognizable from what we have now?

00:42:32 Speaker_02
Well, I work at a newspaper. So for me, the most important thing is that newspapers continue to survive.

00:42:39 Speaker_02
You know, and I think the interesting thing about, you know, being a fashion reporter is that you're not there to sort of sell the idea of fashion or any particular designer to the audience. You're there to explain what is happening.

00:42:55 Speaker_02
And, you know, so so whether there is a September issue of Vogue in five years or not. I mean, I and I think a number of other really great reporters will be there to explain why or why not. You know, the world of fashion is really about change.

00:43:12 Speaker_02
It's about new ideas. The whole idea is like what you're wearing is completely wrong because someone sent something else down the runway. You know, that is the that's kind of the premise at the heart of it.

00:43:23 Speaker_02
But for as much as there has been change and there's been a lot of change at fashion magazines, of course, There actually hasn't been that much change. There is still a glamorous September issue with Blake Lively.

00:43:39 Speaker_02
The First Lady was on the cover of Vogue the month before. There are a lot of things that Vogue has done for a long time that it continues to do, even as the people around the magazine and working for the magazine change.

00:43:55 Speaker_07
Rachel Taschen is a fashion writer for The Washington Post. You can find her coverage at washingtonpost.com or subscribe to her email newsletter, Opulent Tips. Rachel, thanks so much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure.

00:44:08 Speaker_02
Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.

00:44:10 Speaker_07
Next time on Business Wars, we're biting into the burger trend sweeping the nation with food critic Mona Holmes and Mythical Kitchen hosts Josh Scher and Nicole Inaite. From smash burgers to plant patties, we're tasting it all. Don't miss it.

00:44:26 Speaker_07
If you like Business Wars, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

00:44:37 Speaker_07
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondery, this is Episode 4 of Vogue, once and forever, for Business Wars. I'm your host, David Brown. Kelly Kyle produced this episode.

00:44:57 Speaker_07
Peter Arcuni is our Senior Interview Producer. Karen Lowe and Dave Schilling are our Senior Producers. Emily Frost and Grant Rutter are our Producers. Sound Design by Kyle Randall. Additional Audio Assistance by Sergio Enriquez.

00:45:10 Speaker_07
Our Coordinating Producer is Desi Blaylock. Our Senior Managing Producer is Ryan Lohr. Matt Gant is our Managing Producer. Our Executive Producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie. For Wondering.

00:45:27 Speaker_06
In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed.

00:45:39 Speaker_06
It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud.

00:45:50 Speaker_06
Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that define their journey, and the ideas that transform the way we live our lives.

00:46:01 Speaker_06
In our latest series, a young refugee fleeing the Nazis arrives in Britain determined to make something of his life. Taking the name Robert Maxwell, he builds a publishing and newspaper empire that spans the globe.

00:46:12 Speaker_06
But ambition eventually curdles into desperation, and Robert's determination to succeed turns into a willingness to do anything to get ahead. Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts.

00:46:23 Speaker_06
You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.