What: Magazines vs. Blogs.

(Collage Image- Left: W Magazine January 2011, Right: Fashion156 blog and this blog both posted in September 2010)

There are few luxuries I enjoy more than a nice bubble bath, a glass of wine, and the latest issue of W Magazine. Its a perfect way to end a long day… I love the giant glossy pages, the impeccable styling and of course, the clothes. I’ve heard a lot about the impact of blogs on the magazine industry lately. I sort of saw first hand the challenges magazines face to remain relevant and current in this month’s issue of W.  The “Why” section featured two  innovative artists, Chau Har Lee and Manel Torres of Fabrican. The issue for me? They had both made their way around the blogosphere (yuck, I can’t believe I used that word in a post) way back in September…it was kind of old news.

Back when I was a kid, aside from resources like WWD, mainstream magazines were really the only window to the fashion world, to the “new.” That’s where you found the FW collections, the new designers and the latest trends. Now,  FW collections stream live, new designers post on their university pages and expensive trendspotting agencies are taking a back seat to the digital-camera holding blogger. Everything is instant! Instant! Instant!

In a way, I like it… instead of waiting for the result, you can actually watch fashion happen. You can click between trendspotting sites around the world and see things evolve. Instantly. Young designers are discovered before they even graduate from school… blogs, Etsy and other outlets allow them to sell and showcase with little to no start-up costs.

Costs… ah yes, the costs. I do believe there are costs to this perpetual forward motion… and that cost is the benefit. The faster things move, the faster we move to keep up. Things evolve before you can even appreciate them. What’s new is old in a matter of days rather than months or a years… to what end?

Which gets me back to my latest W magazine…despite the fact that what’s new was old, I was still drawn to the substance… something that can get overlooked in rapid-fire blog posts. And there was also Alex White’s great styling in the Tom Ford piece. Yes, I still love my glossies, but in this bloggy, kindley, ipaddy world, I wonder what will happen to the actual physical magazine. Do you think they’ll endure? I hope so… to me, there’s no comparison… I love the feel of actual pages between my fingers.

Plus, you can’t bring a Macbook into a bubble bath.