Magazine Inspiration

Photoshoot Storyboard.

Concept Summary

Our vision is to produce a fashion magazine, which will bridge the gap between high street and high-end designer pieces by advertising and promoting collections/products that are innovative, stylish and wearable from around the world.

Mission Statement

Our magazine is called ‘Plush’ and our name has developed from our concept and theme. Our theme is focussing on the relationship between fashion and the economical downturn creating a contrast between the following ‘More Dash than Cash’, ‘Eco Warriors’, ‘ Sustainable Chic’, ‘Make do mend contrasts with Bling Couture’, ‘Halcyon Days’ and ‘Hedonistic High Fashion’.

With the ‘Hedonistic High Fashion’ theme we have tried to provide a platform for fashion professionals to quash the fast fashion lifestyle, we aim to do this by showcasing upcoming design talent and established designers who are interested in selling the ‘whole experience’ that comes with buying a designer dress. That feeling that your hard earned money is going towards something useful, something exciting, something that will last forever and will not fade with age but will only get better, something beautiful, decadent, to put it plainly ‘Plush’.

Plush’s main target is to give a forum for the woman who loves fashion, who enjoys shopping, likes playing with different looks and trends to create their own personal style, by helping them to look at fashion that won’t cost them a fortune but at the same time won’t fall apart after it’s first wash!! 

Female

Aged 26-35

Size 8-16

What She Likes:

The Plush female lives in London, and it’s surrounding areas.  She is a hard worker, working in office environments alike and she spends her working weeks in meetings, and work related functions in the heart of London but on the weekends, enjoys trips away to the deep countryside of England as well as trips to the sunny parts of Europe. Her job takes her all around, she’s cool, and fun, respected, approachable and enjoys what she does but also enjoys waking up at 12 on a Sunday morning.

She regards shopping as a very enjoyable pastime, she scours through the rails of thrift stores, boutiques, and she flocks to high street stores like H&M, Gap, Zara and Reiss. She loves fashion, and loves investment pieces but also loves a bargain as much as the next person.

She appreciates the fashion industry by buying fashion magazines, visiting fashion fairs and going to London Fashion Week. She loves going out with her friends, going to the cinema, enjoying a night out on the town and weekends away.

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Her style is varied but she also likes taking looks from the catwalk and likes buying key pieces from that particular seasons trends.  She relishes in buying designer and her favorites’ are Chloe, Stella McCartney, Proenza Schouler, but she favors mid-price high street stores as well as vintage finds but likes to pick her jewelry from high street stores. Online shopping is something she enjoys doing during her lunch break whilst at work visiting sites like asos.com especially outlet sites like net-a-porter.com sister site theoutnet.com.

What She Dislikes:

She is not a fan of mass-market high street chains like New Look and Primark; she dislikes the current trend of ‘fast fashion’. She is the type of person who invests in her wardrobe and expects her money and the garment to work for her (so she’ll buy a £500 winter coat and expect it to last for at least 5 years). She doesn’t like music festivals, or looking messy or too casual whilst in the office.

Market Overview

The main competitors we have are the obvious big fashion led magazines like Vogue UK, Elle and Marie Claire. We consider ourselves to be in direct competition with Glamour, Sunday Times Style and InStyle Magazine.

These publications like Vogue and Elle have a long and credible history, which are already in newspaper stands and bookshops around the world. As they are already well known recognised brands we are not there to push them out the water, as they are big brands with a huge influence on the fashion world.

However our unique selling point that we are giving to our readers is focussed on getting Britain out of fast fashion, promoting fashion professionals that provide something a little more unique than what the high street is offering, so we will definitely be watching out for up and coming designers as well as designers who are already in the industry who want to widen their customer base by differentiating themselves from brands on the market.

We also found that a new niche market, which is growing rapidly, is the industry of online publication, which includes blogs and magazines. These three main online fashion magazines fashion156.com, hintmang.com and thehub.c-hab.com are producing fashion journals that have a wide base of features including shopping, industry interviews and articles from contributors but they are also heavily editorial based to a niche market.­

Even though this industry is growing fast, we also think it’s important when launching a magazine that our audience can actually enjoy being able to purchase their magazine and have it in their possession, to be able to feel the pages and see the images, layout, typography work together to create a brand, a story and something they’ll continue to buy and become a part of.