A New Bunch of Big Softies

Check ‘em out, coffee-table paperbacks, the vanity press of the fashion industry. Known by such names as collection catalogues, glamour magazines and image books, these disposable publications have glorified the creations of Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace and Issey Miyake for several years. Now, even as some high-end designers are abandoning the medium, young upstarts like Benetton, Oilily and Swatch are also putting out big, glossy volumes featuring their goods.

The publications are a sort of cross between art books and fashion magazines, with lots of pretty pictures reflecting the designers’ personalities, a minimum of text and absolutely no prices. The best way to get them, in most cases, is to be a preferred customer. Read that--big spender.

The Versace boutique on Rodeo Drive gets 300 copies of each of the designer’s four collection books each season. Some are delivered to clients who request them by phone, a company spokesperson says. But if the sales staff doesn’t recognize your name, you may have to stop by in person to claim one. Many customers who prefer to shop in private--Kim Basinger, for one--use the books, which Versace fills with haughty models overdosed on attitude, as mail-order catalogues.

Netherlands-based Oilily’s also sends its four splashy books, including one for children’s wear, to good customers. The limited number of copies available in the Beverly Hills store go fast.

Other companies use the publications as a reward for patronage. The Swatch book, which contains photos of every watch Swatch has ever produced, is reserved for the 9,000 members of the Swiss company’s collectors club. The $80 annual membership fee buys a special watch, worth $80, the catalogue and various mailings, says company spokeswoman Judy Glassman.

Benetton’s image book, Colors, is a more traditional magazine venture. It’s a combination of National Geographic and Interview magazines--global in its images, dishy in its reporting and light in self-promotion. But it’s the only one in its class that accepts second-party advertising, and it can be bought on selected newsstands, says company representative Peter Fressola.

The original purpose of the magazines was to generate store traffic, a concept easily understood by Europeans. But Americans tend to see them as mail-order shopping opportunities. That’s a problem because some of the garments shown are unavailable. Chas Hepler, owner of the U.S. Oilily franchise, says he’s not always successful in tracking down items. And the Versace store faces a similar dilemma; some garments have to be procured from Milan.

The cost of producing and distributing each book is considerable. Judy Leaf, owner of the Beverly Hills Prada store, says the Prada magazines once cost $5 each from the home office in Milan; then, import duties and postage drove the price as high as $12. The company discontinued the magazine this fall, despite their success as a sales tool.

“They were good statement pieces and they helped lock in the Prada image,” Leaf says. “Wealthy women, the real princesses, love to buy what they see in print. They are not gutsy shoppers,” she says.

Donna Karan, one of the few American designers who produced collection books, ceased publication two years ago. “It became an exercise in beautiful pictures and it wasn’t utilitarian,” says her publicist, Christy Hood. To fill the gap, Karan offered a small book of photos from her runway shows to store buyers and teamed up with Neiman Marcus to produce her first mail-order catalogue, sent to preferred customers last week.

The glory magazines make more sense for European companies, says Keith Kelly, editor of Folio: First Day, a publication that tracks magazines. “It takes more to blanket the United States than it does Spain, Italy or the United Kingdom. The economy of scale here is so broad.”

American designers are better off showing their goods in established publications, he says. “Magazines like Elle and Harper’s Bazaar try to capture the same sort of mystique and look (of image books) in their pages. They have carved out a niche and a readership these advertisers want to reach,” Kelly says, noting that Calvin Klein put a 116-page image insert in the October, 1991, issue of Vanity Fair.

Unfortunately, the life of an American fashion magazine is even shorter than that of an image book, unless of course it’s in a doctor’s waiting room.