Two sad things I learned today.
First- Domino magazine is shutting it's cover for good.
Which truly stinks, Domino is my favourite magazine (tied with Vogue.)
Second- The terrible US economic climate has forced owner Tracey Ross to close the doors to her namesake boutique. After 18 years of business, this is sad news for the fashion world.
If you had the chance to ever visit this boutique, it truly was a gem. During each of my visits to LA, it was one of the places we would always pop in to.
Excerpt from The New York Times
Domino, Shopping and Decorating Magazine, Closes
Domino, the three-year-old shopping and home décor magazine, will stop publishing with its March issue, Condé Nast Publications announced Wednesday.
The publisher, Beth Fuchs Brenner, and the editor, Deborah Needleman, will leave Condé Nast, a company spokeswoman, Maurie Perl, said. A handful of staff members will be placed in open Condé Nast positions, but most of the staff of about 80 will be dismissed and will leave the company within a week.
Domino was among the more troubled magazines at Condé Nast — its ad pages fell 26 percent from January 2007 to January 2008, according to Media Industry Newsletter. In a recession and a housing market crash, finding advertisers and encouraging readers to go shopping and redecorate their houses seemed to be a hard sell.
Still, as of two weeks ago, Condé Nast was publicly supporting the magazine, announcing an organizational change that had Domino reporting to a top executive and discussing “the brand’s vitality in the marketplace” in a news release.
Ms. Perl said that recent economic news had changed the company’s opinion.
“In hindsight, in continued evaluation, perhaps we would have asked to take the last two weeks back,” she said. “The economy just drove the decision to discontinue the publication.”
The home design category has suffered at almost every major publisher in the last year. Time Inc. closed In Style Home and Cottage Living, Martha Stewart Omnimedia closed Blueprint, Meredith closed Country Home, Hearst closed O at Home and Hachette Filipacchi closed Home.
Domino, which began publishing in April 2005, was the third Condé Nast magazine about home décor to go under in about a year. Condé Nast closed Vogue Living, a supplement to Vogue, in August and House & Garden in November 2007.
These were not the only steps the company took to reduce costs. In October, it asked each magazine to reduce its payroll and budget by 5 percent, which resulted in a handful of layoffs at almost every title. At that time, the company also folded Men’s Vogue into Vogue and reduced the number of issues of Condé Nast Portfolio.
Domino was one of a few Condé Nast magazines that both media buyers and magazine executives speculated would not make it through the year. Ms. Perl said that other magazines with ad-page declines, including Condé Nast Portfolio, were still stable.
“The decision was to close Domino,” Ms. Perl said. “As far as the other publications, they remain firm.”
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