It seems in this age of digital news; magazines have to try harder than ever before to keep our attention.
T.S Eliot may not have cared much for it, but the magazine industry is traditionally rather fond of April. It tends to be the opener for the Spring / Summer season, where readers are actively starting to think about what’s next on the fashion agenda.
Not content with making a splash on the newsstands with one standout, buy-me cover, a conspicuous trend for 2010’s April editions is the multi-cover. Several magazines have opted for more than one cover: fashion and culture magazine ‘25’ has undergone an editorial makeover and celebrates with 4 identical covers, featuring Anja Rubik, Karlie Kloss, Constance Jablonski and Abbey Lee Kershaw in matching outfits.
The Korean edition of fashion bible ‘W’ celebrates its 5th anniversary this month and does so with 4 different covers, again featuring girls-of-the-moment Kloss and Rubik, plus Meghan Collison and Angela Lindvall.
But determined to out-do them all, French magazine ‘Revue de Modes’ has gone all out with 12 different models featuring on its multiple covers. Names ranging from Coco Rocha, Emily DiDonato, Hannah Holman, Tao Okamoto, Lyndsey Scott, Jacquelyn Jablonski and Chanel Iman gives this magazine’s April issue a truly international flavour.
Some magazines have struggled during the past 18 months, and others have risen to the challenge posed by online instant news-feeds by doing what they do best: model appreciation writ large. But the vigour with which magazines are fighting back tells you something about how we like to get our fashion fix.
The instant nature of blogs and Tweets have transformed the way we digest information, but what magazines continue to offer is a perspective on what is happening in fashion; a considered point of view that strips back the hype and tells the reader what they really need to know.
What is certain in the near future is that publications will end up online, but the essence of a good magazine, its ability to pare back the excess, headline and analyse the good stuff, is something that readers still want. A Tweet is good for an instant style hit, but when it comes to in-depth news and features, you can’t beat a magazine when it comes to getting the full story, cover to cover.


Sources:
www.modelinia.com/blog