End of an Era: Style.com To Become an E-Commerce Site
Ever since Vogue EIC Anna Wintour became the artistic director of all of Conde Nast, media watchers have wondered what might be in store.
Today comes word that, per Wintour, Conde Nast’s Style.com will be stripped of its editorial and be transformed into a Net-a-Porter-style e-commerce site. According to WWD, “all that type of editorial content will eventually be available instead only on Wintour’s Vogue.com.”
It’s been a rocky ride for Style.com of late, which saw its quarterly Style.com print magazine shutter last year, apparently because Wintour felt it hewed too closely to Vogue.
Still, the move towards e-commerce may make sense for a company that’s seeing stagnating ad numbers for its print publications, even while audiences for its digital platforms grow. According to company chief Charles Townsend, 2014 was a rough year for print, but “With our digital audiences growing 46% over the same period last year, we outranked AOL to become the #1 digital lifestyle network among affluent millennial consumers — a milestone achievement.”
Conde Nast did not confirm the changes to Style.com and there’s no word on what might happen to its staffers, like editor in chief Dirk Standen. Just this February, Standen said everything was just dandy with Wintour. “Yeah, look, Anna Wintour is now my boss, and she’s been incredibly supportive and really interested in helping Style.com grow. I think it’s good to have Anna in your corner.”
Style.com’s high profile fans include designer Alber Elbaz, who has said, “People used to wake up and read the Bible. Now they wake up and go to Style.com. I’m not a computer guy, I don’t have an e-mail address, but Style.com is one of the reasons I felt I had to learn to use the iPad.”
Update! Style.com has released the following statement:
This fall, Style.com will become a new global e-commerce destination. At that time, our comprehensive fashion and runway coverage and much more will move to a newly expanded fashion shows channel of Vogue.com, to be found at Voguerunway.com. Until then, keep coming to Style.com for our daily fashion show coverage, industry news, parties, street style, and more.
