Another day, another print publication shuttered.
Details, the men’s fashion title, is closing, Bob Sauerberg, president of Condé Nast, which owns the publication, said in a memo to employees on Wednesday. It’s December 2015/January 2016 issue will be its last.
Details, which launched in 1982, was acquired by Condé Nast in 1988. The glossy publication, with a circulation of 560,000, was able to ride a wave of popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s and capitalized on the so-called “metrosexual” craze (that now seems like a million years ago).
Similar to countless other magazines that have closed in recent years, Details was upended by the Web, as marketers migrate more of their ad dollars to online venues.
To fill the ad void left by Details, it is expected that GQ, Condé Nast’s other men’s fashion and lifestyle publication, will increase the frequency of its twice-a-year GQ Style publication, the Wall Street Journal said. Details.com will gradually transition to gqstyle.om, a Condé Nast spokesperson to the Journal.
With the closing of Details, brands and PR agencies playing in the men’s fashion market will have to redouble their efforts when it comes to pitching stories and positioning their top executives for thought leadership.
Digital brands, such as BuzzFeed and Mashable, traffic in some of the same type of men’s fashion and lifestyle coverage that Details provided, but the margin for error is a lot tighter.
Closing Details is just the latest attempt by Condé Nast to reconfigure its portfolio.
Last week Linda Wells, who founded Allure magazine in 1991, was replaced by Michelle Lee, formerly the editor and CMO of Nylon magazine. In October, the company acquired the music website Pitchfork for an undisclosed sum, and in August 2014, the company sold Fairchild Fashion Media, publisher of Women’s Wear Daily, to Penske Media Corp., for a reported $100 million.
(Update: Details had 40 full- and part-time editorial jobs and 27 advertising jobs, a magazine spokeswoman said, per WWD. Of these, about 55 are being let go with about 12 digital staffers transitioning to GQStyle.)
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