Between Frivolity and Art: Contemporary Niche Fashion Magazines

Abstract

This article is a part of a wider examination of a recent genre of fashion magazines, “niche fashion magazines,” that emerged in the 1990s. Growing out of style magazines, glossies, and art journals, niche fashion magazines have a hybridized quality that straddles art, style cultures, and high fashion. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu, I argue that the genre belongs to the “subfield of restricted production,” and intrinsic to niche fashion magazines is their complex, and rather elitist, mediation of fashion as ironic, artistic, and intellectual. Although they are positioned outside of the mainstream, their financial underpinning is advertising revenue, and they are, thus, not outside commercial interests. The central aim of this article is to explore contemporary niche fashion magazines, their underpinning values, and their position in the field of fashion.