Affordable fashion magazine startup

As glossy magazine circulation figures have dropped, there’s been a simultaneous increase in the popularity of fashion websites and bloggers. Now three bloggers are hoping to buck the trend by creating a print magazine about affordable fashion, led by internet writers. I tracked down one of the bloggers behind it, Lauren Cooke, to get the inside gossip.

So, how did this come about? ‘I noticed myself increasingly ignoring the glossy mags in favour of the much more “real” and actually more interesting content and images on all my favourite fashion bloggers’ websites,’ says Lauren. ‘This got me to thinking about the idea of a magazine that was filled with the sort of things fashion bloggers write about, from all across the spectrum of personal tastes and styles. Then we got chatting about the idea on Twitter, and it just kind of happened… Currently we are thinking that this would be the perfect project for a highstreet sponsor such as ASOS, or even as a supplement to an existing “high fashion” magazine.’

While it might be beautiful to look at a £4,000 designer evening dress, most of us have more modest budgets. According to Lauren, ‘Monthly [clothes] budgets of the people who have responded to our survey end up being an average of £110, with many people having significantly below this. 46% of respondents never buy designer clothes (the content of most current luxury glossies), with all but 1% only buying designer clothes occasionally or for special occasions. Interestingly, most respondents have low earnings (26% are on below £10,000, 25% 10-20k), yet 25% of them still read glossy mags.’

Covering affordable fashion can be tricky, to say the least. ‘We have to acknowledge catwalks as the (slightly ridiculous) forebears of much of our high street fashion, and we don’t want to ignore it. However, our aim is to discuss catwalk fashion in depth and realistically – as in how people would wear the creations or even channel a vibe in combination with past trends and wardrobe staples.’

‘Working with this, affordable fashion will be a range of things. High street brands, eBay shopping, vintage on etsy, thrift shopping, making your own clothes. All of these make fashion affordable, and I think, alongside featuring products, a major aim of this magazine will be to show how real women make their style their own so that readers can use that as a stepping stone to their own version of affordable fashion.’

If you’d like to follow their progress, drop by