This book has given me insights on how to create a niche fashion magazine by focusing on three elements like production, consumption and textual qualities of major player magazines. The author talks about the emergence of the online press and democratisation of data and digital content has let for platforms to constantly put up updated data online and give the readers new content to look upto at least everyday. Printed magazines are dying out and online magazines are taking over. 

Positioned at the forefront of fashion, the innovators of fashion use niche fashion magazines as playgrounds to try out new styles of photography, styling, art direction and models. These producers of fashion are linked via the networks and (sub)cultures of the various niche fashion magazines they work for. It is a prestigious and growing medium, highly influential in how fashion is consumed and produced (5)

Niche fashion magazines represent slower consumption of fashion (6)

Exploring the materiality of niche fashion magazines is important at a time when digital mediation seems to replace much ‘material’ fashion mediation. With their limited print run, rarer frequency and expensive production, these exclusive magazines represent the haute couture of the fashion press (6,7)

Instead niche fashion magazine consumption is highly symbolic and it is precisely their symbolic value that sets niche fashion magazines apart from most other genres of fashion magazines. (7)

raison d’être

One of the key features of culture is the ways in which meaning and aesthetic practices are shared and embedded within imagined and real communities across global and local cultures. What is significant about the niche fashion magazine culture is that production and consumption are interrelated practices. Edwards ( 2000 ) (192)

Mostly in NYC some intellectually inclined niche fashion magazine  intellectually inclined niche fashion magazines are based geographically in New York or continental Europe, with Paris as the hub with Self Service  (1995– ), Purple  (1996– ), Crash  (1998– ) , Paradis  (2006– ), Some/  Things  (2009– ), Encens  (2002–  ) and Vestoj  (2009–  )

Mostly in the UK, humorist niche fashion magazines in the UK 10 Magazine  (2001– ), Love  (2009– ), AnOther Magazine  (2001– ), POP  (2000– ), Tank  (1998– ) , Ponystep ( 2011– 13, continued online presence), Plastique  (2007–  9) and 125  (2003–  13).

The majority of the intellectually inclined niche fashion magazines comprise juxtapositions of trash realism, art portraiture and porn chic photography capturing key collections of high fashion; art works and collages; and analytic conversations with producers of culture. (49)

Most niche fashion magazines are image driven (52)

Niche fashion magazines are also ‘stylist driven’, referring to the tendency for stylists to shape and fit the clothes to the concept and the vision of the spread, so that the documentation of the clothes is secondary. (54)

Magazines along with the content produced in them are cultural mediators. They bridge the gap between production and consumption of fashion. Magazines are an object that connect the consumers to the fashion world. This is very interesting as one of my objectives behind creating a magazine is to act as a mediator between the West and lesser known cultures. To highlight the reality and grandeur and challenge the focus on the negative aspects that are widely focused on by mainstream media. 

What agues drive editors of niche fashion magazines? Key codes to follow while producing a niche fashion magazine are :

Exclusivity 

Timing 

Economic values 

Budget 

Advertising 

https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/198683

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/india-inc/india-inc-thinking-beyond-the-cashmere-crowd

During the past couple of weeks I have been doing some research on magazines that publish content that is similar to what I want to curate and create. I realised that publishing content about artisans and heritage crafts can get monotonous for a reader and I need to diversify the into other areas. Like I have mentioned to you before about working in India and facing challenges of India being misrepresented, I would want to publish articles about the same that challenge stereotypes. 
After moving to London, I have been observing and reading about the Western influence on Indian fashion and culture and vice versa. I researched on the same for my Fashion Media Lab project. My outcome has changed slightly as well, I would produce a hybrid magazine that will have a print and digital version. And the 360 videos will be filmed is possible otherwise, I would submit a through plan for their production. 
I am confused about my outcome being sufficient enough to fit into the requirements of Outcome 3, that’s why I’m planning to situate my project in the option of Outcome 2. What would you suggest?

The magazine will publish content that explore the cultural duality of :

• Fashion
• Arts
• Consumerism

from lesser known cultures by focusing their relationship with the West. (One culture at a time, India being teh inspiration for the first issue) 

Research question – How visual culture that portrays the mutual influence of fashion and cultures from India and Europe be used to produce a hybrid magazine that challenges cultural appropriation in the West.

Who – Western audience. Content focused on Indian/South Asian women in London, 22-32 years old

What – Hyphenated identities, cultural influences on their style, cross roads of sustainable fashion, cultural appropriation, acculturation

Why – To publish content that promotes multiculturalism, challenges the stereotypes

How – Fashion films/editorials, inspired by TANK and Dazed magazines

When – Early 2000s – Contemporary media practices, now because the world is changing. I plan to explore the forces shaping Indian fashion cultures that are rapidly changing and its relationship to the West– from art, film, fashion, design and literature to social movements. This will be directed towards a Western audience. 
The 360 degrees videos related to my proposed research question – 

Reviving the cultural identities of Indian heritage crafts in the European fashion landscape through an interactive magazine that utilises emerging digital technologies, will fit rightly into the content plan for this magazine. It can be a part of the whole study on the influence of European fashion on Indian handicrafts. This allows me to research on other areas and pursue my research plan in London.

The magazine will publish content that explore the cultural duality of :

• Fashion
• Arts
• Consumerism

from lesser known cultures by focusing their relationship with the West.

How visual culture that portrays the duality of the influence of fashion and cultures from India and Europe be used to produce a hybrid magazine that challenges cultural appropriation in the West.

Who – Western audience. Content focused on Indian/South Asian women in London, 22-32 years old

What – Hyphenated identities, cultural influences on their style, cross roads of sustainable fashion, cultural appropriation, acculturation

Why – To publish content that promotes multiculturalism, challenges the stereotypes

How – Fashion films/editorials, inspired by TANK and Dazed magazines

When – post 2000 – Contemporary media practices, now because the world is changing…. Post pandemic, post racism protests

cultural influence

cultural hybrid lifestyles

A magazine that challenges the stereotypes of South Asian fashion, arts and cultures. I want to explore the influence of the West on these cultures and vice versa. It will explore the forces shaping this rapidly changing region and its relationship to the world – from art, film, fashion, design and literature to social movements. I want to shed light on a region that is swiftly growing in influence – one that is home to almost a quarter of the world’s population and linked to a vast global diaspora of tens of millions.

here are a few magazines that work towards similar goals:

https://www.jgnt.co/about

https://www.browngirlmagazine.com/about-us/

https://www.clovemagazine.com/

https://www.anothermanmag.com/style-grooming/10679/rahemur-rahman-fashion-designer-interview-london-fashion-week-mens

Few months back I was working as an assistant choreographer for a fashion show produced by Asiana Magazine, I met some amazing people from the South Asian community in the fashion industry in London. One of the was designer Rahemur Rahman. We started talking to each other after he saw my UAL id at Marriott in Mayfair that was the venue of the fashion show.

After having a brief conversation with him, he asked me to add him on Instagram and stay in touch. Surprisingly we were already following each other and admired the others work. While researching on cultural identities of South Asians in London, i came across this article in Another Man about Rahemur’s first show at London Fashion Week last year. His take on the duality of cultural identities is very personal as it is inspired by his parents.

While working at the show, I felt like I was in India. The food, people and music made me nostalgic. There was a very special feeling, a feeling of comfort while working with a community I belong with. This is something that I want to work towards, building a community of designers, artists and creatives belonging to a South Asian heritage and living and working in the UK.

The topic for my research in my proposal was – Reviving the cultural identities of Indian heritage crafts in the European fashion landscape through an interactive magazine that utilises emerging digital technologies.

Post that, I have been doing some research and looking at topics like –

How can we experiment with visual culture to educate and express the world around us using fashion film? How does one’s culture influence their style and fashion media preferences and vice versa?

To address the urgent need to address the issue of cultural appropriation within the western fashion system which is filled with examples of inappropriate borrowings that compromise rich cultural traditions for quick commercial gain.

It’s in sustainable and ethical fashion where I feel that women of coloir need to be not only included, but centered, the most. After all, the people whom fast fashion exploits are textile and garment workers, most of whom are women of colour. The environmental damage of fast fashion also disproportionately affects the health and livelihoods of low income communities of colour.

Having more people of colour in the industry can help shift the narrative from sustainable and ethical fashion as a way for white people and people with class privilege to “do good,” to sustainable and ethical fashion as a way to empower and support communities of colour.

Connecting the dots between fashion, cultures, art and consumerism….

Main areas that I would want to research on are :

• Cultural identities
• Fashion
• Art
• South Asian (POC) (Women)
• European fashion
• Cultural duality of arts and fashion

After our conversation with Cherie Federico, I realised that the content that I have planned is very niche, and may cause a challenge to acquire an audience. For me, my main focus is on creating a magazine that connects the dots between cultures, fashion and consumerism. I would also like to curate and create content about art. my interests in these areas. I have been looking at the identities and cultural influences of people of colour n fashion and vice versa, but may keep it as my contingency plan.

I have also been thinking of creating a hybrid magazine, a print and a digital version. As much as the readers prefer digital magazine, my conversations with Liam Gleeson, Lynsey Fox and Cherie Federico state that the physical appeal of a printed magazine is still preferred by a large audience. And their opinions have given me insights from a professional’s point of view.