網頁成雜誌: Style.com/Print

Front Row

Finally, the Web at Hand

By ERIC WILSON

Published: October 26, 2011

NEXT week, the first issue of a glossy magazine from the editors of Style.com, with the puzzling name of Style.com/Print, will hit newsstands. The cover shows a close-up of Lindsey Wixson, the model from Kansas with the strawberry-shaped smoocher, framed by a thick lipstick-red border. There are no teasers about what’s inside, just a quote from Ms. Wixson that suggests she will never be known as the Joan Didion of her trade.

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The cover of the first issue of Style.com/Print.

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Ever since it was announced this spring that Style.com, the fashion news site started by Condé Nast in 2000, was developing a print version, people have wondered, what exactly is this thing? Can’t I just read it on Twitter? Well, aside from the novelty factor of its origins, it is a surprisingly effective product, one that reads with a swiftness that is not unlike the experience of clicking through multiple screens at a time. The first 100 pages can be read in five minutes.

“We wanted to give the reader a sense of what it is like to go through the journey of the shows, from New York to London to Milan to Paris,” said Dirk Standen, the editor of Style.com. The idea was basically to create a collectible distillation of what happened during the spring 2012 runway season, which ended only three weeks ago. It will cost $14.99 on newsstands, or $4.99 plus shipping if ordered online before Monday.

Much of the content is similar to what’s typically found online: a collection of Twitter messages, Tommy Ton street-style photos, top-10 lists of most-viewed shows (Chanel was No. 1 with 3.5 million page views), the favorites of its editors (Balenciaga came in first), the most ubiquitous party people, the best shoes and bags and models, and the best-dressed fashionista based on reader votes (Giovanna Battaglia pulled off a major upset). Ms. Wixson also features prominently in a photo essay by Theo Wenner. And, should you actually wish to read something, and do not need glasses to consume very small font sizes, there are articles about Proenza Schouler, Donatella Versace and a Q-and-A with Azzedine Alaïa.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about the magazine is that all the ads show fall clothes, while the editorial focus is on spring. But then, as Mr. Standen would attest, not everything translates so easily into print.

“I did at one point think we should have a tag on the cover that said ‘Click here for more,’ ” he said. “But that was shot down pretty quickly.”