Oradea,
Romania and Wellington, New Zealand, February 9 (JY&A
Media) Lucire, the first fashion web site to
spawn a print edition, has announced that it will launch
in Romania. The magazine is bullish about the move being
"pioneering".
According to founding publisher Jack Yan, it is the
first time a fashion title has gone truly global, with
satellite editions having largely the same content as
the master one, save for linguistic differences.
Whereas other fashion titles have lent their name to
overseas editions, their content is usually localized.
Mr Yan believes that in today’s global society,
there is no need to do that if the content is already
international, and points to Time and BusinessWeek as
examples.
"If you tell me that all women are interested in
is what they can buy at a local boutique, then I say
that is a very parochial view," he says.
"Today’s world is more closely knit. The
Asian tsunami illustrated that. What happens in one
place affects what happens in another. I have never
understood why no fashion magazine recognized that sense
of global community, until now.
"There is room for those shopping titles, such
as Lucky and Shop Etc., but the fashion sector has become
far more internationalized since the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries."
"Women are far more globally minded than publishers
would like to think," said Lucire editor-in-chief
Nicola Brockie.
"It is so exciting. At Time you can identify with
the cover and stories which are the same anywhere in
the world, and no one is doing it with a fashion title.
Lucire is about to make this happen," said Lisa
Tardrew, Director of Advertising of Lucire.
Whether the gamble will work will be known in late April
2005, which is currently being tipped as Lucire’s
Romanian release date.
The news comes soon the magazine released its third
print issue with Grammy Award nominee Vanessa Carlton
on its cover, and during the same issue’s second
appearance at the fall shows at New York Fashion Week,
including an after-party tonight at the Lotus Club hosted
by Indashio (www.indashio.com) and its founder Brad
Batory.
Lucire will be co-published at PIXART in Oradea in western
Romania and joins a stable of two other titles there,
Revista Aeroportului Oradea (Oradea airport magazine)
and BH Business, a business magazine dedicated to the
Bihor area. Both have been well received.
"Lucire made us a very good impression due to the
content and quality, and we are sure that it will become
a market leader in a short time in Romania," said
Mirella Lapusca, Romanian publisher of Lucire.
"In Romania, the launch of Lucire will be made
in the second part of April, and we will begin with
national promotion (on TV and in the mass media)."
Romanian art director Valentin Lapusca is equally confident.
"I am sure that Lucire Romania will represent a
new standard in the fashion magazines’ market,
due to the quality and design. We are pleased to be
working on Lucire’s Romanian edition, and we are
sure it will became an representative magazine for the
market, due to the excellent potential available in
Romania."
Lucire, which started online in 1997, has usually taken
a "one world" approach to coverage.
True to Mr Yan’s vision, the Romanian edition
of Lucire will retain nearly the same features.
Other than language, the main changes to the Romanian
edition are the size (the Romanian edition is shorter
than the New Zealand one, but equally wide) and the
shopping pages.
Mr Yan says there will be other editions of Lucire in
2005.
Coincidentally, the word Lucire exists in Romanian.
It is a little-used term meaning "to reflect". |