interface news reporter | Chen Qirui
interface news editor | Lou Qinqin
html On July 12, Condé Nast Group confirmed that Rocco Liu, the editor-in-chief of its magazine "GQ", will serve as the editorial director of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty".Liu Chong is the third editor-in-chief of "vogue Clothing and Beauty" since its founding in 2005. The founding editor-in-chief Zhang Yu and his successor Zhang Ning (Margaret Zhang) resigned at the end of 2020 and June 2024 respectively.
Condé Nast Group said it will announce the new editor-in-chief of "GQ" at a later date. The acting executive editorial director during the transition period will be the current creative director Cui Yanyu. According to a report by Women's Wear Daily, with the departure of Liu Chong, the Chinese copyright partner of "GQ" will be changed from China News Service to Shanghai Translation Publishing House, which is also the Chinese copyright partner of the fashion magazine "Elle World Fashion Garden" Cooperative partner.
News that Zhang Ning may resign first appeared at the end of 2023 and was confirmed in February 2024. For more than half a year, including Hong Huang, stylist Liu Lu and Cui Dan, who has worked in "GQ", have been rumored to replace Zhang Ning. The choice of Liu Chong is the least surprising decision among them.
Image source: Weibo @roccoliu Liu Chong
Liu Chong joined Condé Nast in 2009 when "GQ" was first published. He has served as senior copy editor, reporting editor and new media director, and finally served as editorial director in 2020. His most well-known achievement is leading "GQ" to achieve new media transformation in the era of decline of print magazines. The core channel of
is the public account "gq laboratory", which analyzes and ridicules the life of the urban middle class through creative content and has obtained a large number of "100,000+" articles. In 2018, "GQ" achieved a revenue of 200 million yuan due to the success of gq laboratory. Nowadays, it costs a million yuan for a brand to place a promotional article in it.
In sharp contrast to the success of "GQ", the influence of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty" has plummeted in the past few years. There was a lot of ridicule and dissatisfaction on social media, and the magazine was losing celebrity resources and luxury brand customers.
According to a report by Women's Wear Daily, the brand spent at least 3 million yuan to sponsor the cover of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty", but Zhang Ning has been without sponsorship several times since taking office. The practice of increasing the right to speak has brought about controversy - the cover of the May 2023 issue originally featured by Du Juan was temporarily withdrawn. The reason was said to be the "exclusive" rule set by Zhang Ning, that is, before the cover of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty" was published, the photo was taken The subject cannot be exposed on the cover of other fashion magazines.
Zhang Ning picture source: Weibo @vogue Clothing and Beauty
Compared with "elle World Fashion Garden" and "Harper's Bazaar", which are also known as the "big three", "vogue Clothing and Beauty" has officially entered The Chinese mainland market was late, and it was already in 2005 when it was first published. However, the reason why it has been able to catch up from behind and be called the first of the "Big Three" by netizens is mainly due to its strong international resources.
"vogue Clothing and Beauty" photographed Oscar winner Nicole Kidman when it was first established, and invited top international photographers such as Patrick Demarchelier and Mario Testino to shoot the cover of a Chinese fashion magazine for the first time. Such resources were unavailable to other Chinese fashion magazines at the time.
With the development of China's luxury goods market, "vogue Clothing and Beauty" has become a bridge between luxury brands and Chinese consumers with its international image and resources. Before the advent of the social media era, fashion blockbusters shot by top photographers have become fashion enlightenment for many people, and luxury brands have also conveyed a richer image in China through these image contents.
However, the high starting point and high-style international image have now become a shackles for "vogue Clothing and Beauty". This is the core reason why its transformation has been difficult to effectively advance in the past few years. It is neither able to hold charity dinners full of entertainment gossip like Harper’s Bazaar, nor can it extend its business to real estate and retail like the magazines owned by Live Science.
So far, "vogue Clothing and Beauty" still relies on traditional cover and inside page photo shoots to maintain its image and attract customers.However, this dream-making business model requires high capital investment and takes a long time to implement. Not only does it make it difficult for magazines to effectively reduce operating costs, but the cycle for obtaining returns is also relatively long.
Picture source: Weibo @vogue Clothing and Beauty
Zhang Ning also tried to make changes during his tenure. The measures included reintegrating the social media strategy of "vogue Clothing and Beauty" and turning the paper magazine Vogue Me into the electronic magazine Vogue Plus. Simultaneous landing podcast and Chinese designer awards. However, these methods have not really touched the changes in the core operating model, but have diluted the international image of the magazine as a signature in the past.
The reality is that there are only two ways for a fashion magazine to continue to operate stably. One is to take the road of internationalization and high-end to the end, continue to output high-quality visual images, and serve exclusively for small circles with high aesthetics and high net worth; the other is to take the public route and expand through various new media channels and business to increase influence.
"GQ" is taking the second path, and now Condé Nast obviously hopes to make "Vogue Clothing and Beauty" also follow this path by appointing Liu Chong as editor-in-chief. This requires the output of more localized content, and to some extent it can be seen as Anna Wintour's compromise - in recent years, she has tightened her operational powers and is keen on "global linkage" of the American version of content.
Since the popularity of "The Devil Wears Prada" in 2007, Vogue's editor-in-chief has begun to enjoy star treatment. Netizens are fascinated by this extremely powerful position in the fashion industry and are keen to discuss the celebrity gossip and luxury styles surrounding it. They regard this position as an inner projection of a luxurious lifestyle.
Liu Chong is already a KOL himself. His personal Weibo account has 360,000 followers. Many celebrity fans will like him and hope to give idols more cooperation opportunities in the future. This is why the news that he is about to become the editor-in-chief of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty" has become a hot search topic.
For people in the industry, the editor-in-chief of "vogue Clothing and Beauty" still has a lot of resources at his disposal. A star who has appeared on the cover is often more likely to be favored by luxury brands, and luxury brands also need to promote the diversity of creative visual images through images in fashion magazines. This kind of blockbusters shot by professional creative teams such as photographers, stylists, hairstylists, etc. are still hard to replace the content of fashion bloggers. And this is the strength of "vogue Clothing and Beauty".
Picture source: Weibo @智家gq
But it is not easy to get "vogue Clothing and Beauty" back on track. The two major challenges facing magazines today are to rediscover international, high-style image content and to reorganize the system to bring revenue levels back to their original levels. This actually requires Liu Chong to serve as both an art director and a professional manager.
He must balance the international image and localization transformation; at the same time, he must be good at team management and cope with the complex workplace environment ranging from anna wintour to local employees. In the turmoil of the past few years, a large number of veterans of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty" have left, and the stability of the internal team of "GQ" has enabled it to continue to output creative content.
From this perspective, after Liu Chong is transferred to "Vogue Clothing and Beauty", "Zhizu GQ" will also have new challenges. A stable team tends to quickly become fragmented after the core leader leaves.
Although Condé Nast promoted current creative director Cui Yanyu from within as acting executive editor, he is only 28 years old. Whether he can stabilize past brand resources like Liu Chong will obviously take time to give an answer. Furthermore, if Condé Nast later introduces someone else to serve as the new editor-in-chief of "GQ", how he can establish his authority in the new team will also be a test.
If in the past Condé Nast only had to worry about the revenue of "Vogue Clothing and Beauty", then now the future of "GQ" is also full of suspense. If the transformation is successful, Condé Nast can wipe out its decline in the Chinese market in recent years; if it fails, the losses will be greater than in the past and the turmoil will intensify.
