The Revenge of the Niche Fashion Magazine

New York Times

07-04-2025

On a snowy night just before Valentine's Day, Cultured magazine gave a party for its February-March 2025 edition. It was held at Quarters, a TriBeCa space that is both a furniture store and a wine bar. The place was packed. The cover star, the actress Cristin Milioti, was there, and partygoers took turns posing in doorways or perched on sofas for their social media feeds.
'There has been an unexpected groundswell of support,' said Sarah Harrelson, the founder of Cultured, who has worked on publications her entire career, including InStyle and Women's Wear Daily.
The first issue of Cultured, which combines the fashion and art worlds, appeared in 2012, when Ms. Harrelson was living in Miami, where she had worked for Ocean Drive magazine and started a magazine supplement for The Miami Herald.
'I think back now, and I was 38 and creatively bored,' she said. 'I wanted to do something for myself and not have to heed the rules. Publishing had gotten formulaic.'
Independently produced print magazines with an emphasis on fashion are experiencing a boomlet of sorts, making waves for their striking design and high-quality production. There is Cultured but also L'Etiquette, Konfekt and Polyester, to name a few that line the racks of Casa Magazines, the West Village periodical store, and magCulture in London.
No longer seen as disposable or a relic of a dying industry, these magazines are regarded as high-end products. 'It's a luxury experience of sitting back and getting a single viewpoint coming to you that you didn't know you wanted,' said Penny Martin, the editor in chief of The Gentlewoman, which could be said to have pioneered an indie print resurgence when it began in 2010.
Búzio Saraiva is the associate publisher of nine independent magazines, including Holiday and Luncheon, and the founder of Nutshell & Co., a company in Paris that works with other similar magazines.
'People behind independent magazines create material meant to last,' he said. 'Someone will collect them, and then someone else will buy one at a flea market and make a moodboard out of it.'
Mr. Saraiva thinks of these magazines as vehicles for stylists, photographers, celebrities and writers to show off creativity in a way they might not be able to do in mainstream magazines. 'It's a lab,' he said. 'It's R&D for the creative industry. I see people taking pictures now that we shot 10 years ago. Not everyone is triple-checking to see if they've offended or please everyone.'
At first glance, independent magazines use a lot of the same celebrities that magazines owned by Hearst or Condé Nast work with. 'A lot of time it's the same cover and talents, but the interviewer or the photographer can be completely different,' said Joshua Glass, who started the food and fashion magazine Family Style in 2023. The spring 2025 issue has Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover interviewed by the curator Klaus Biesenbach and photographed by Brianna Capozzi.
A major difference, Mr. Glass said, was creative independence. Like many other indies, Family Style is majority self-financed. 'I'm beholden to my own moral integrity, my peers and the people I employ,' he said.
'We are in the black,' Mr. Glass added. 'We're not flying private jets or taking town cars. We are extremely lean, and we do things in ways that are modest.'
Magazines like Cultured and Family Style generally rely on ways to stay afloat that are quite similar to those of mainstream print publications. They have advertisers who are happy to pay a cheaper rate for a smaller magazine with a younger audience.
'The tide has shifted,' said Nick Vogelson, who founded the culture, arts and fashion magazine Document in 2012. 'Every brand sees the value of print media. Every season for 13 years, the advertising has grown.' This spring, Mr. Vogelson is adding a new magazine, Notes on Beauty.
'In my line of work, you don't call them advertisers, you call them supporters,' Ms. Martin said, laughing. 'It's not just about display advertising, it's about special projects, as they're called. There are other ways to work with those partners who are looking for culturally engaged or high-net-worth readers.' The Gentlewoman has hosted an architecture tour in Los Angeles with Cos and a tour of the Chelsea Physic Garden in London with Vince, for example.
Here, a field guide to 10 of the new crop of fashion-leaning print magazines.
Notes on Beauty
For the first issue, spring 2025, Inez and Vinoodh photographed Julianne Moore for the cover with red rose petals stuffed in her mouth. There are stories on ancient wellness rituals and an essay about a writer deciding to forgo cosmetic treatments.
AFM
The A is for 'A,' the 'M' is for 'Magazine,' and the 'F' stands for something unprintable. Issue 001, with the theme 'pursuits of happiness,' came out last fall, produced by the dating app Feeld, which proudly declared that more than half of its contributors were on the app. Feeld is one of a number of companies, including Mubi, the movie platform, and Metrograph, the movie theater, producing print spinoffs for their companies.
Heroine
What if a fashion magazine was almost entirely photos of fashion? The fall 2024 issue of Heroine has short interviews with the actors Finn Bennett and Noah Jupe, but the highlight is the model Alice McGrath, photographed by Fabien Kruszelnicki and wearing a great deal of Celine.
Cultured
The most recent issue has several covers, including one with Cristin Milioti holding a lit cigarette, photographed by Chris Colls. The theme is art and film, and it has interviews with the director Luca Guadagnino, the Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres and the painter Torkwase Dyson.
Konfekt
Konfekt bills itself as 'the magazine for sharp dressing, drinking, dining, travel and design.' It's based in Zurich and often has a middle-European bent. Issue 17 includes profiles of a chef in Georgia (the country) and a calligrapher in Paris, and an interview with the Serbian-born fashion designer Dusan Paunovic.
L'Etiquette
Based in Paris, L'Etiquette puts an emphasis on personal style and the art of getting dressed. There are separate editions for men and women, and they're perennially sold out on newsstands. Online, panels of fashion world denizens choose their favorite It bags, which turn out to be delightfully quirky and under the radar: an L.L. Bean suede tote, say, or a tiny Balenciaga shaped like a croissant.
Polyester
Polyester has a playful energy and a pop visual aesthetic reminiscent of 1990s magazines. Heroes to a certain kind of fashionable feminist are covered, like the winter 2024/2025 cover star Sofia Coppola or Chelsea Fairless and Lauren Garroni, the hosts of the 'Every Outfit' podcast.
Patta
The namesake magazine of an Amsterdam shop, Patta has gained a cult following for its coverage of music and streetwear. The magazine takes a global view of culture with an emphasis on African-European connections. Its spring-summer issue has an interview with the Congolese-born director Baloji and an article on the rising EDM scene in Lagos.
Holiday
Every edition of the midcentury magazine Holiday was dedicated to a different city. Writers included Truman Capote and Joan Didion. Fast-forward to spring 2014, and the design studio Atelier Franck Durand was given the go-ahead by the French publisher Lagardère to bring the magazine back, so strictly speaking, Holiday is not independently published. It still picks a city for each issue, the fall-winter one being New York. There is a vintage flavor in a reprint of the Joan Didion essay 'Goodbye to All That,' but it also has Tommy Dorfman and Marc Jacobs in conversation.
Unconditional
'Made by Women, for Women,' Unconditional says, and the female gaze is apparent. Articles include a piece on lymphatic drainage practitioners in Paris and a profile of the designer Rachel Scott of the fashion line Diotima.