Observer » Fairchild Fashion Group

Kaplan Talks Fairchild: ‘They Want Apps!’

John Koblin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:56:26 -0400

"I'm a media guy, not a fashion guy," said Peter Kaplan, the new editorial director of Fairchild Fashion Group. "What I want to be thinking about is how to take these brands and get ahead of the culture in media terms."

Though Mr. Kaplan emphasized again and again that he is not taking over any sort of daily duties at WWD, and that he has the greatest respect for the staff and editor Ed Nardoza, the move from Traveler to the Fairchild offices on Third Avenue does mean that Mr. Kaplan gets back to what he loves: working with a paper.

"It's the other newspaper in town that's a five day a week daily paper," said Mr. Kaplan. "They've got a great staff and an excellent editor. It's a thrill for me."

"It hugely appealed to me for two reasons: One of them is all the stuff I was talking about at the end of the Observer. A lot of the Fairchild publications seem ready-made to point forward. They are these incredible media propositions. And they have the same sort of nimbleness that we had at the paper. They have a similar sized staff and there's not a massive bureaucracy. You can take the content and repackage it and refocus it and think it through for a new generation of readers."

Which leads us to his second point!

"There's a new generation of readers coming up and they'll be reading Women's Wear and these other publications, and they want a first-rate web site, and they're gonna want something for the iPad. They want apps! The fashion people spend their lives thinking about how to get ahead of the culture"

"[The publications] should look beautiful and, in print terms, they do, but electronically they should be gorgeous," he continued.

Mr. Kaplan said that he's been a Women's Wear Daily reader since he was a boy.

"Red Smith used to have a column there," he said, referring to the legendary sports columnist. "That's why I started reading Women's Wear. It was before he went to The Times, and after, I think, the Herald Tribune."

He complimented the staff once more and said, "I've loved it since I was a little boy."

He starts on August 2nd.

Gina Sanders Takes Over at Fairchild

Molly Fischer — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:04:53 -0400

Condé Nast announced today that Gina Sanders will be taking over for Richard Beckman as president and CEO of the Fairchild Fashion Group, which includes Women's Wear Daily, WWD.com, Footwear News, Fairchild Summits and Fairchild Books.

Not only is Sanders a 20-year Condé veteran (most recently at Lucky, Teen Vogue and Gourmet), she's also family—as Daily Intel points out, she's married to a Newhouse nephew.

[em]WWD[/em], [em]Supermarket News[/em] Split: Conde Nast Officially Divides Fairchild

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:22:48 -0400

This afternoon, Conde Nast group president Mitchell Fox confirmed the news that the company is splitting the former Fairchild trade titles into two separate divisions, Fairchild Fashion Group and Fairchild Publications. Memo after the jump.

--Gabriel Sherman

From: "Fox, Mitchell"
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:37:31 -0500
To: Conde Nast Publications
Subject: Fairchild Fashion Group & Fairchild Publications

As we continue our transition to a single company, we've decided to organize our newspaper and business publications in the B2B area into two units.

Effective immediately, all businesses in the fashion-related B2B area will now be organized under the name Fairchild Fashion Group. The group includes WWD, DNR, FN, Fairchild Books, WWD.com, the Fairchild Executive Summits, Archives, Classified and Business Development.

The non-fashion titles will continue to operate under the name Fairchild Publications. This unit includes Supermarket News, HFN, InFurniture and the bi-annual HFN Now.

Both the Fairchild Fashion Group and Fairchild Publications are divisions of Condé Nast Publications and all reporting structures remain the same.

Many thanks,

Mitch