Alicia Roache, Staff ReporterFOR A long time, but especially more so in recent years, Jamaica has been regarded as a place of vibrant culture, unmatched beauty and unmistakable style. Yet those qualities have yet to be successfully harnessed and marketed in a local fashion magazine.
Model agencies, designers, health and beauty products as well as service providers could naturally utilise the services of a local or regional magazine geared towards promoting their interests.
According to Pulse CEO Kingsley Cooper, "It could also be a tool for regional imaging by helping to brand the Caribbean generally as a place of style, beauty, elegance, creativity, trendiness and sophistication. It would also be an avenue for expressing a true Caribbean culture through fashion."
When one thinks about branding Jamaica, images of Haile Selassie on a Christian Dior gown or Janet Jackson sporting a 'Bob Marley' belt speak of the possibilities of a fashion brand. But neither of these images was featured in a magazine that could be called Jamaican.
Laura Gambrill, managing editor of CGR Communications, the publishers of Skywritings, Air Jamaica's in-flight magazine, believes that a local fashion and lifestyle magazine would stake a much needed claim on Jamaica's culture.
"I don't see why it shouldn't be done," she said. "It would be really good. It would bring ownership to our culture." For their part, Skywritings magazine publishes a swimsuit issue every year and uses models and the works of designers from the region. But Skywritings is by no means a fashion magazine. In addition, it does not have the widespread distribution to a mass market that a magazine developed for that purpose would.
NO FASHION MAGAZINE
Of course, there have been attempts at local/regional magazines but none of these were fashion magazines. CGR Communications published Lifestyle Magazine for the first time in 1998. 5000 copies were published in five years, but it was discontinued because "it wasn't financially viable," according to Gambrill.
As far as regional magazines go, there is Macco published in Trinidad, which deals with 'Caribbean Living', homes, lifestyles, tourism and culture. Mae Wayne is also doing She in St. Lucia, which is distributed within the Caribbean, Europe and North America.
From Barbados Lydia Braithwaite will be launching Rare, a magazine "designed to capture the elegance and sophistication of a West Indies winter break..." and is aimed at the "chic, high net worth tourists and residents in the West Indies, U.K. and U.S." she says.
Despite the commercial failure of Lifestyle Magazine Christine Messado, sales and marketing manager of CGR, suggests that a local or regional fashion magazine would not only be a good idea but could become a commercial success if it is "high quality" and marketed properly.
"I think that would be an opportunity for quite a few advertisers to get their products out there," she said. However, "If it is not a high quality magazine they will not get the advertisers to invest in it."
Cooper, who claims to have attempted a fashion magazine in the past, says advertising budgets limit how well companies can respond to a fashion magazine. Good magazines are extremely expensive to publish and, as Caribbean people are not seen as great readers and do not buy magazines in large numbers, revenue must come from advertising.
The magazine must therefore reach an international market to justify international advertising, for only those advertisers have the budgets to cover the costs associated with a quality publication. Local advertisers generally do not have the money and in any event would need to see strong circulation numbers to justify the spending, he said. With these factors in mind, a fashion magazine is not an "immediate priority" for Pulse, he says.
COST TOO HIGH
One can understand Cooper's point. A full page ad in Skywritings costs US$5,000 (J$300,000). However, Messado believes that "to a client it (the cost) is worth it comparative to the sales."
Of course, few local designers could afford that kind of cost to advertise. Mark McDermott, one of the two designers of local high fashion brand Uzuri, suggests that because of the nature of the industry, designers may not be able to afford that kind of outlay. "I'm not sure we are making (as) much in the industry to afford what an ad of that nature commands," he said. "With all the overheads that you have staff, electricity, to run a public relations campaign that costs you might not have enough to spend on an ad," he said.
McDermott does emphasise, however, the benefits of such a magazine to the industry and especially to designers. "Any kind of effort to resuscitate the industry would be good for us. It would do us well; it would augment the other things that are out there," he said.
Michael Barnett, CEO of Miguel Models, agrees. "The fashion industry is a poor industry," he said. "Half of the designers are retired and the few that are left are struggling because of the economy. They might not be able to afford it." He suggests, however, that designers could be promoted by using their products in ads and editorials.
But for all concerned, a magazine that is fair and unbiased and dedicated to the development of the industry rather than any one company is a major requirement. According to Barnett, the local fashion industry is fiercely competitive and individualistic. One then has to wonder how a magazine that focuses on such an industry would maintain its objectivity and fairness. Barnett suggests that "non-aligned businessmen; businessmen not affiliated with any association and no particular entity in the industry" would be the best people to undertake such a venture.
Done in this way, he suggests that the magazine would "help to bring the industry together and create a platform and encourage people not to be individualistic." A magazine of that nature would be "impossible without some form of unity,"
Barnett said.
