Material World

For the last few days I’ve been exploring Post, the new iPad-only fashion mag and the first of a host of such publications to appear. It beats, in other words, the much-discussed Rupert Murdoch iPad-only newspaper, a Virgin project, and another lifestyle mag that is so under wraps, if I told you who was behind it, I’d have to kill you (just kidding). In some ways, this is good – the first product to define a space can sometimes own a space (can you say “Apple”?) but it’s also risky: you work out your kinks in public. And I have to say, at this stage, I think the Post folks, and anyone else planning something for this space, have a few things to consider.Starting with how you differentiate between advertising and editorial, when both sectors have decided arty conceptual video is the way forward. Turn past the title page of Post, for example, and you discover a super-cool morphing colour clip that looks not dissimilar from a later morphing fashion clip, though the former is neon, and the latter slo-mo greige. It took me awhile to figure out the former was also an ad for McQ, and the latter a story entitled Panopticon. Meanwhile, my 10 year old was flipping through, and decided her favourite story was actually a chirping cartoon – which was, in fact, an ad for Stella McCartney.

Call me old media, but I think no one has actually given much thought to the ad/edit differentiation on the iPad, perhaps because they think such differentiation doesn’t matter, now that brands are all making promotional video that many on-line sites and blogs are showing as content. It’s a slippery slope, though, and I’d be interested in knowing what conversation, if any, was had on the subject. Personally, I think at the very least there should be a disclaimer on, or a specific section for, paid advertisements that don’t involve editorial judgement. Or maybe another way of presenting them: separate but equal. Though historically, that policy doesn’t have a very good track record.

Anyway, that’s just one issue – it is, however, related to another issue that I think is equally unresolved: our current video obsession. Because the iPad handles video so well, Post (but also many other products designed for the iPad) seems to equate iPad-only with video, and there are twice as many moving, conceptual photos in the mag as words.

I fully acknowledge I am prejudiced here, being a word person, but at the same time, I find all this emphasis on creating “emotion” in fashion film, as opposed to telling a story, tiresome. Information is sacrificed to imagery, and to me, even at 1.99, that trade off isn’t worth it.

Indeed, one of my favourite parts of Post was an accessory section with product still lives, prices and fabrications, where you can rotate the object in three dimensions. It was both fun and useful, and it was probably the least complicated part of the publication to create.

There’s often a sense, when making something for a new medium, that because you can do something (really cool mini-movies!) you should. But I’m not convinced we’ve cracked the fashion/video puzzle yet. And Post hasn’t done much to change my mind.

I’m thinking about doing a column on this, so I’d be interested in knowing if anyone else has “read” it – and if so, what you think.