With designs on the fashion industry, some new magazines try to make a splash.
By Aileen Jacobson STAFF WRITER NEWSDAY

Tall and glossy, slim and slick, bursting with color, they sashay into view.

The models come later. This is the parade of the fashion magazines, designer-ready and vying for attention from a gossip-hungry, high-power crowd - the fashionistas.

The paper entries are primping now, waiting for the arrival of New York's Fashion Week on Feb. 7. Then they will be unleashed on trendsetting attendees and, in some cases, upscale or enterprising civilians.

At least three new fashion publications will debut in or near the tents of Bryant Park: a shiny semiannual called Style & Design from Time magazine that also will be mailed to high-end Time subscribers, a daily news-and-gossip tabloid called The Daily from the organizers of the fashion show event and a new behind-the-scenes peeker from Women's Wear Daily called Inside New York.

They will join the regular stalwart industry trade paper WWD and the return - pumped up and ready to strut - of last season's clear couture winner, Us Weekly's Fashion Week edition, a gossipy sheet called Us Daily that set the standard for buzz during its September launch. (And just so there's no future dearth of fashion followers, Teen Vogue debuts this week.)

The heightened competition heralds some trends that have little to do with hems and fabric: a scramble for advertising dollars in a still-faltering economy, the celebrity-ization of the fashion press (Anna! Kate! Glenda! Bonnie!) and the ever-broadening (figuratively only) appeal of style in the pop life of America.

"Design has infused every aspect of our lives," says Belinda Luscombe, editor of Time Style & Design, a new high-gloss magazine that will be distributed free to Fashion Week attendees at hotels and near the designers' tents (20,000 copies), and mailed to 600,000 Time subscribers who are either very high income or also subscribe to InStyle. The magazine also will go to 495,000 subscribers, fashion show attendees and newsstands in Europe and 240,000 in Asia.

Luscombe says her magazine will address business aspects of fashion and other design topics, such as cars and architecture, exploring how culture and identity are shaped through design. "The belle of this ball is still fashion. It's the most dynamic area, and where most of the money is. Clothes can be made more quickly than buildings, and there is a bigger market for people who must dress themselves every day."

Contributors include Time staff, freelancers, designers and celebrities. Among them is Kate Betts, former Harper's Bazaar editor. She is one of several editors - including current Bazaar editor Glenda Bailey; Us' Bonnie Fuller, formerly Glamour's editor; and, of course, Vogue's Anna Wintour - who have become boldface names themselves. Incestuously, quite a bit of fashion news these days involves reports on the doings of these editors.

Style & Design is an outgrowth of two special fashion issues published by Time in Europe last year that successfully created "chatter" in advertising and fashion circles, says Taylor Gray, associate publisher for marketing of Time and publishing director of Style & Design. At the same time, the editors of Time in the United States were trying to find ways to increase fashion coverage, and he was trying to find ways to sell more luxury ads for editions that go to high-end subscribers (who aren't meant to notice they're getting extra ads that poorer readers never see).

The new publication - which won't be sold on U.S. newsstands because postal regulations would then make it more expensive to mail - brings Time to the attention of designers and other potential advertisers at the fashion shows, says Taylor, and provides an opportunity for ad-sales packaging benefiting the weekly.

If successful, he says, the magazine could be on U.S. newsstands next year, its frequency could be increased or it could be divided into two publications, one for fashion and one for design.

The competition for the eyes of fashionistas at the shows sounds delicious to Luscombe, who last summer turned down a job offer from Us editor Bonnie Fuller to be deputy editor of the weekly.

Us Daily's three issues in September, distributed outside the tents and chronicling the appearance and seating arrangements of attendees more than the designers' wares, were avidly read as the audience waited for shows to begin. "Wouldn't that be funny. It could be down and dirty - but not dirty," says Luscombe. "Theirs is quickly done, clever and arch. Ours is more thoughtful and elegant. We've stewed this baby.... We're competing for the same eyes, but for a different part of the brain." The publications also are suitable for different shows, she jokes in a way only fashion insiders can fully appreciate: "Theirs is a 20-minute read, maybe for Kenneth Cole. He's on time. Ours is about an hour read. Marc Jacobs is a good time for Style & Design. He's usually about an hour late."

Of course, the competition goes beyond Us this year, and here's a juicy tidbit: The new publication from 7th on Sixth, the fashion week's producers, is being edited by the same person who edited Us Daily in September. The new publication, with seven issues, is called The Daily.

"I'm only imitating myself at this point," says Brandusa Niro, The Daily's editor. "If somebody else did this, I would say it's imitation.... Fashion is so exciting, it needs more than one voice."

Niro says her new product, a glossy of tabloid size, will be available free inside the tents (Us and Time aren't allowed in), and at hotels and shuttle buses, as well as on newsstands for $1.99. The 15,000 daily copies are "poised to be an insider's delight, with lots of fashion, gossip and scene reporting ... and lots and lots of photos. We have a wonderful captive audience of insiders."

Captivity appeals to advertisers: "You get in front of the most powerful audience there is. The media is powerful.... You can guarantee Glenda Bailey's eyes for at least half an hour every day. It's a way to get noticed by the most important people in fashion and media." The Daily, which is part of IMG, the owner of 7th on Sixth, will, like a hyperactive Brigadoon, pop up at fashion weeks in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Milan and London, twice a year at each. Regular features, she says, include FSI: Fashion Scene Investigation, Tongue in Chic and The Haute List.

"Fashion has risen to the level of high celebrity Hollywood glamour, and so have the editors and designers.... And New York rules," she says. Conversely, fashion uses celebrities: "Nothing is more important than Gwyneth Paltrow wearing your clothes."

And preferably at the Golden Globes or Oscars, where fashion has become almost more important than who wins, several observers say. (Furthering that synergy, Glamour this month produced an eight-page "do's and don'ts" Golden Globes special that was distributed at the Miramax Films after-party and various hotels, hair salons and other venues around Hollywood.)

Bonnie Fuller doesn't want to discuss Niro's defection: "Nobody stole anybody anyway," she says. "We think that we've got some concepts for stories that the fashion world will find impossible not to read.... I think we bring our own brand of Us-ness to the daily, and we will maintain this uniqueness. There's no question in my mind that Us will be the leading read." Once again, there'll only be three issues, she says, but they'll be fatter, with more ads. Last year, she got everyone's attention with a lead story on Vogue's editor headlined "It's All About Anna."

Fashion editors and other journalists are "important players in the industry," Fuller says. "What they put in their pages influences what appears in the stores and what women are going to wear." And more and more, fashion has become what Americans think about: "Fashion and style have really pervaded America's lifestyle.... Fashion is part of pop culture."

Vicci Lasdon Rose, Us' publisher, is blunter about the upstarts: "IMG is copying us. We had a good idea, and other people are thinking, how will they take advantage of it. A lot of them thought, 'Ugh, why didn't I think of that?' But Bonnie and I are believers that imitation is never as good as the original." Advertisers are clamoring to get in, says Rose, and she anticipates a print run of 15,000 to 20,000 per issue, up from 10,000 last year.

"Our greatest challenge is, how do we deliver without over- delivering.... By holding back a little bit, making it harder to get, that makes it a little more desirable." Last year's daily helped establish Us as "a serious player in the world of fashion," she says, and got ads for the weekly by giving "key decision makers ... a sense of the need to pick up tomorrow's edition, which is how consumers feel about the weekly."

Women's Wear Daily, not to be outdone, is launching a special section called Inside New York in its Feb. 7 edition (also, as usual, at newsstands). The section, with 30,000 extra copies printed, then will be available as a stand-alone over the weekend in the tents and at hotels favored by the fashion world, including those in the W chain, and restaurants, including The Four Seasons and Michael's.

Inside New York - to be followed by Inside Los Angeles and, this summer, Inside the Hamptons - will spotlight "it" parties and restaurants, and such matters as how designers entice A-list celebrities to their shows and how much a show costs. In addition, WWD will continue its normal daily coverage.

"Fashion is a lively, theatrical business," says WWD editor in chief Edward Nardoza. "It leads to this orgy of media coverage twice a year." Even The New Yorker puts out a style issue twice a year, he points out, and TV has lately been added to the mix.

Indeed, Full Frontal Fashion returns with round-the-clock runway coverage Feb. 8-16, and 12-hour coverage Feb. 17-March 30, on MetroStories. For the first time, coverage is being extended to London, Milan and Paris. And, also for the first time, WE: Women's Entertainment will carry a national version of the show, beginning with a Feb. 23 preview (part of a month-long "Fashion Spectacular" that includes a Wintour documentary Feb. 9), going weekly in April. The E! Networks' Style Network airs a runway show, "Fashion Trance," Feb. 8-15, featuring dance beats.

Last year, People added two newsstand-only issues called Style Watch, which did so well (600,000 copies sold in the fall) they will be repeated. The next issue goes on sale March 3. In spring 2000, a twice-yearly WWD The Magazine debuted.

Even Vogue is expanding, with an occasional TV series called "Trend Watch." Though editors will appear, it's really a business venture linking the purchase of commercials and print ads in the magazine, says Vogue publisher Tom Florio. Also, Vogue, which last year broadcast the runway shows on a giant screen in Bryant Park for the public, this year hopes to add screens in Grand Central Terminal and in W hotel lounges.

"It's of interest to people. It's very glamorous and cool," says Florio. Being considered "of the moment" is appealing for consumers, products and media, he adds. That's why he thinks Time is entering the fray, looking to attract attention and advertisers, just as Us did "brilliantly" last year - though he thinks Time's plan of sending issues to wealthy subscribers is misguided: "You don't market fashion to demographics. You market fashion to attitudinal psychographics."

"Fashion shows used to be primarily for retailers," WWD's Nardoza says. But now the stores have already committed their dollars, so the shows "have become mostly media events."

Though in recent years American designers have become household names, he adds, "You can't discount the effect of the Gap, which made basics into fashion items with its blitzes of television commercials in the '80s and '90s. They raised the consciousness level. Fashion was no longer remote. It was affordable."

He sees the influx of new fashion publications, particularly from Us and Time, but also from several Web sites, as an attempt to "muscle in" during a difficult advertising climate. "We'll have to be good to get the reader's attention," Nardoza says. "It'll be a bottleneck for sure. The fashion industry has a lot of friends twice a year."

It's more than twice, however, says Peter Arnold, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a trade association of 258 designers. "The Victoria's Secret show is now on TV. Fashion is part of pop culture.... People are more interested in the quality of their lives. They're spending more money on the quality of their lives, and there's a rise in all sorts of magazines to meet that renewed interest."

There's got be a limit, he says: "Advertisers can only be pulled in so many directions. It's getting to the point where it's hard to imagine a niche that hasn't been covered by a magazine."

All of this is good for his members, though: "I'm pleased because it further demonstrates the appeal of fashion to a wider audience. That sells more clothes, and makes more designers more successful."