Highsnobiety, the digital publisher that blends commerce and content focused on streetwear trends, hasn’t shied away from printing magazines, even as its target audience is more likely to spend time on smartphones. The redesigned print publication comes as the media group expands into different platforms to actively engage new-age consumers.
Highsnobiety is launching HIGHStyle, the first in a new series of glossy print magazines aimed at new-age consumers.
This month, the media company, founded by David Fischer in his college dorm room as a blog about sneakers, introduced the first edition of a series of quarterly print magazines. The first issue is called HighStyle, and can be purchased directly from its website for $17.
HighStyle is a redesigned version of Highsnobiety magazine, which the company first introduced in 2010 as it expanded from its digital roots. The new title is the first one edited by Thom Bettridge, who previously worked for Interview and O32c, the influential magazine about contemporary culture.
“The Outfits Issue” of the magazine is its “larger-than-life ode to the art of magazine magazines,” according to its website. In addition to showing new products, it also has a fashion spread with Atlanta rappers Migos and interviews with model Hailey Bieber and Kevin Parker, leader of the psychedelic rock band Tame Impala.
The redesigned print publication comes as the media group expands into different platforms to actively engage new-age consumers.The media company’s latest move is an attempt to appeal to a nostalgic segment of Gen-Z who are collecting magazines the way the CD generation collected vinyls. As reported by Printing Industries of America, Gen-Z are a growing market for the print industry, spending an average of one hour a week reading print publications.
“The research we’ve conducted shows that there is a subgroup of people that we call ‘cultural pioneers’ who are more drawn to print as a source of inspiration,” Bettridge said.
Digital is incorporated into the magazine’s design DNA, aiming to engage both new and loyal members of Highsnobiety’s online community. HIGHStyleincludes Instagram-friendly formatting, like spreads on the meme-able “macro bag” (a play on Jacquemus’ Chiquito micro totes that took over newsfeeds in 2019) as well as what would have been a 2,000-word profile on artist Ruby Sterling that was instead visualised as a poster designed by Gian Gisiger, communication design consultant for Balenciaga.
“Having a digital-first mentality to print means that the first conversations we had around each article also included, ‘What will this look like on Instagram?’ That aspect to me is key. I didn’t want it to be that the magazine is for some subsect of our audience,” the editor-in-chief said.
There won’t be an explicit link between the products featured in HIGHStyle and Highsnobiety’s retail platforms. Unlike Net-a-Porter’s .
In an interview with the Business of Fashion, High Style Editor Bettridge said print media appeals to a subgroup of “cultural pioneers” seeking inspiration. Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app that is dominant in the fashion industry, informs the magazine’s design.
But creating a print magazine requires a longer-term outlook that’s more proactive about anticipating trends, turning its brand into “a cultural producer rather than a cultural follower,” Bettridge said.
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