Plus Lisa Armstrong meets the other man at Vogue
Emanuele Farneti, the third man appointed to edit a Vogue this year, talks to Lisa Armstrong about clothes, controversy and if magazines can remain relevant
Emanuele Farneti, the recently appointed 43-year-old editor of Italian Vogue apologises profusely for being late, ruing that he didn’t ride his trusty old Suzuki motorcycle, but was instead chauffeured in one of those black limos all fashion VIPS take during fashion month. He wasn’t even diva late. Besides, it gave me time to explore the offices of Italian Vogue which are empty – it’s Saturday, but still – and smaller, cosier and more cluttered than I’d expected. A corridor is lined with framed images from the past 53 years of the magazine’s history. “Some people said I should get rid of them and start afresh,” he says. “But why would I want to erase all of Italian Vogue’s history?’
It is quite a history. There are currently 22 editions of Vogue around the world – with Polish Vogue set to launch in March 2018. Some Vogues are more equal than others, however. At the top, American Vogue remains the undoubted power player in Condé Nast’s stable. On its right, is Italian Vogue. Although its circulation is small – 74,600 for July 2017 – Italian Vogue is the niche, arty one that punches far above its circulation in terms of cultural reach.
Franca Sozzani, its previous editorin-chief for 25 years, was revered for her personal style, unerring ability to spot talent and her willingness to take a punt on controversial issues, turning oil spills, race and plastic surgery into memorable fashion images that sparked worldwide conversations.
When Sozzani died last December of cancer, at the age of 66, only her closest friends knew she was ill. Such was the shock, that some even said Condé Nast should close the magazine: Franca was irreplaceable. On to this somewhat poisoned plateau stepped Farneti and in the early days of his tenure – he took possession of Sozzani’s black and cream office in
February – he did not look like a man who was having an enormous amount of fun.
“It was really tough at the start,” he concedes. “But it was such an interesting time to take over because it’s such a time of change in magazines.”
That’s putting it mildly. In cruder language, magazine circulations across developed markets are plummeting. Titles are merging or moving solely online. Condé Nast, once considered a blue-chip prospect, is reining in, shedding employees and closing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. Ten days ago it announced that British Glamour, an instant success when it launched in 2001 with a circulation of more than 581,000 that had dwindled to around 270,00, would henceforth be a digital-only entity focusing on beauty. The generations of women who measured their life stages by their glossy magazine subscriptions – in the UK the feeder publication for girls was generally Twinkle, followed in due course by Jackie, Company,
Cosmo, Good Housekeeping – have lost the habit. Current teens and 20-somethings never acquired it.
Not only that but Farneti, although unfeasibly chiselled and handsome (if the Coen brothers were casting a male Vogue editor…), is about as far from Franca Sozzani as it’s possible for a fashion magazine editor to be. A criminal lawyer by training, he’s a red-in-tooth-and-claw journalist who edited Italian GQ and Architectural
Digest, he cut his teeth on sports journals and a small (ie budget) TV channel called Sei Milano (You, Milan). “They gave us cameras and we just had to go out into the city looking for news,” he laughs. When Diana, Princess of Wales died, he found himself holding the fort in a TV studio for six hours with no film footage. This is terrific training for managing social media, but it is not the classic career path of a Vogue editor – and there were raised eyebrows on his appointment.
It must have been gratifying therefore, when his first issue sold 74,000 copies, up 16.7 per cent from 2016. “Well, it’s not such a huge number,” he says with typical modesty, “but it’s significant that you can raise the circulation, because no one thinks that’s possible these days.” There were two September covers (which together sold 94,300, up five per cent on 2016), one featuring two female models kissing, the other two males – both part of an osculatory photographic portfolio that featured in the magazine’s celebration of LGBT issues. “It’s good to be controversial. Not for the sake of it – this is still a super Catholic country – but because they were part of such a beautiful story. We also introduced a new column in that issue called Manifesto, and the first one was an open letter to the Italian minister of tourism because apparently Italy’s record of attracting LGBT tourists is pretty bad…”
So is Italian Vogue’s future one of decorative social campaigning? “Franca was already doing that, and I want to do much more. If you can get a lot of people talking about an issue and sharing it on social media then they might actually end up having the curiosity to buy it.”
Farneti’s wife worked for a digital agency – although since he became
Vogue editor, she’s at home looking after their two young children – but there was much discussion in the Farneti household about their social media strategy before the Kiss issue. “What’s interesting is that it outsold,