It's been an action-packed 10 years since 1999, a decade that has seen everything from full-blown terrorist attacks to the sinking of New Orleans, from a President elected by the Supreme Court to a
President whose father was born in Kenya. So you're forgiven if you failed to note that
NYLON has now reached its tenth birthday. In magazine years, that means it's somewhere well into middle
age -- an interesting turn of events for a publication targeting some subscribers who had barely started reading when it was launched.
The milestone is celebrated on the cover of the April
issue, as well as on the pages within. The cover's long list of "close friends" serves a dual purpose: If you're browsing mags and you've never heard of Beth Ditto or Peaches Geldof or The Pierces or
Mark the Cobrasnake, then perhaps you should take one giant step to your right and select another fashion-beauty-music title.
Of course, only those who've been shipwrecked since prior to Y2K
wouldn't recognize cover girl Lindsay Lohan, her tresses highlighted and her pale belly looking eerily Photoshopped. Yet the tagline -- "A Pin-up for a New Era" -- raises more questions than it
answers. The interview reveals La Lohan seems to be in a post-rehab/post-feature film/post-heterosexuality phase. Goodbye to all that at age 22. So the question now is, what exactly does Lindsay bring
to NYLON by gracing the "Special Anniversary Issue" cover? In fact, that blurb about partying like it's 1999 may be more ironic than intended. As for the interview, you begin to wonder when the
pull quote has her saying, "There's not much I can do about the fact that I've become a kind of tabloid obsession." Apparently not speaking about her personal life to NYLON never popped up as
an alternative.
NYLON calls itself an "indie girl's fashion magazine" and page after page of waifs bears that out. This, after all, is a periodical with a regular feature dubbed "Jeans
of the Month" (which doesn't celebrate -Claude Van Damme or Harlow). If ad pages are any indicator, this anniversary issue appears mean if not lean. It totals 196 pages, and while it doesn't require
the forklift necessary to lift Vogue, there are still plenty of A-list advertisers. That said, the pages are chock full of those annoying subscription cards, each touting 75% off.
Yet
NYLON's biggest advantage is its look. Make no mistake: The magazine has a distinctive appearance if not a distinctive voice, and the art direction is first-rate hipster. In addition, there's
some quirky and entertaining stuff in these pages:
The best piece in this issue is "Aural History," in which nine of NYLON's favorite artists -- ranging from Deborah Harry to Sharin
Foo to Patti Smith -- recall memorable musical moments in their own words. "Tough Enough" celebrates Helena Bonham Carter as Marla in "Fight Club," and offers shopping tips for recreating
her look (the Yves Saint Laurent jumpsuit retails for $6,575 but the Band-Aids are only four bucks). The music pages are particularly strong, especially the back-stories provided on the
groups Chairlift and Coathangers. An interesting full page is devoted to a 25-year-old burgeoning designer named Kimberly Ovitz. Even though NYLON acknowledges she "does not have a
lot of formal training," midway through the piece, however, we learn she "happens to be the daughter of former Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz." You don't say. In his anniversary letter,
Editor-in-Chief Marvin Scott Jarrett rightly toots NYLON's horn for not being "controlled by a huge corporation." Fair enough. But what exactly does that mean in the fashion mag biz?
NYLON isn't published by Condé Nast or Hearst, but the coziness with advertisers indicates that even independents can -- and perhaps must -- blur the advertorial lines. The "Happy Birthday
to Us" feature consists of 10 full pages of greetings, nearly all of them from the sales side of the editorial/advertising wall. Nearly every photo contains six lines of .9 type identifying the
fashion suppliers. And there's a regular feature entitled "Factory Girl" in which a staffer visits a designer's workplace. So a better assertion is whether it's possible for anyone to publish a
fashion magazine that is truly independent -- not from a powerful parent company but from advertisers.
And say what you will about magazine cartels, but they tend to nail the pesky details,
such as grammar and spelling. NYLON is filled with enough awkward syntax to wear out a grease pencil, not to mention such errors as tense switching and missing punctuation. "Most importantly"
is used in place of "most important" not once but twice, and the Lohan interview alone contains two missing-word typos. Alas, the masthead lists 26 interns -- count 'em! -- but not one copyeditor.
Let's hope hiring one is on the to-do list for the next ten years. Indie is one thing, but amateurish is another.
MAG STATS
Published by: Nylon Holding Inc.
Frequency: 10 times per year
Web site:www.nylonmag.com