And for the first time, the position goes to a Singaporean

Vogue SG’s new editor-in-chief Desmond ‘Monkiepoo’ Lim. Photo: monkiepoo/Instagram

The Singaporean edition of Vogue has just announced its new editor-in-chief, three months after it was reported that their publishing licence was revoked and then reissued, but valid for six months. It was then also said that the previous EIC Norman Tan resigned from his position to take up a new job in the Big Apple. Mr Tan wrote his farewell message in the November/December issue, comparing his tenure to baking. In a media release, Vogue SG said that Desmond ‘Monkiepoo’ Lim will be the magazine’s new editorial head. The appointment must have come as a 大红包 (big hongbao) for the magazine’s former fashion director. Mr Lim’s first issue would be in March. That indicates that the magazine’s publishing licence has been extended beyond the six months that was offered to them after an appeal was made. Mr Lim, as one former magazine editor told us, “has his job cut out for him.”

According to Mr Lim’s latest Instagram post, it took him “2.5 months and 5 rounds of interviews” before the job was his. As with his predecessor’s appointment, Media Publishares looked from within to hire the magazine’s next EIC. Some media observers believe this is a cheaper way since it is likely that existing senior staff would eagerly accept the coveted job with minimal or no adjustments to the salary. Until the current announcement, Mr Lim held the position of fashion director at Vogue SG, after leaving, in 2020, Singapore Tatler, where he held the same position for six years. He is Vogue SG’s first Singaporean for the top editorial post. Former EICs were connected to Australia: In the magazine’s first run (1994—1997), Nancy Pilcher was the editorial head. An American, she ran Vogue Australia (and the SG edition concurrently). When the magazine returned to our shores 23 years later, the EIC role was offered to Norman Tan, originally from Melbourne, who was the social media-crazy EIC of Esquire SG. But Desmond Lim is not entirely disconnected from Down Under. He went to school there, graduating with a BA from the University of South Australia.

It is not immediately apparent what Mr Lim will bring to Vogue SG. Will he continue in the footsteps of the one who came before him? Could those shoes be too large to fill? Or, will he speak directly to the readers here with a more authentic voice? Mr Lim is known to be comfortable with his native self, as sure of his love for bubor cha cha as his adoration of his late ah ma (paternal grandmother) to whom he was the endearing “ah boy” (once, he even did an Iris Apfel on her, and styled her in Prada). Vogue SG struggled to evoke affection before. Or, a discernible Singaporean-ness. It would serve the title well to rouse feelings and excitement that reflect the uniqueness of the name framed in the ‘O’ of the masthead. In the media release, Mr Lim shared that he will “continue to explore the integral connection between fashion, culture, and technology.” Continue, he said.

A PR consultant asked us what we thought of the appointment, “if he makes the cut”. It is hard to say. Going from a fashion director to an EIC is a big leap. Mr Lim, to us, has always been more of a visual person than textual. Putting together a whole magazine, with numerous constituent parts, isn’t the same as styling a fashion spread or creating the content for a social media account. Mr Lim started his career as a graphic designer and his visual language, fashion-wise, is based on gratuitous edginess, rather than clear communication through clothes. The curious May/June 2022 cover of the model covering her hands painted blue may have found kinship in Mystique, but for us, it was hard to ascertain what it really meant, and why it would be a draw or inspiration. But these days, as editors are less the gatekeepers of the fashion industry, Desmond Lim may need more than edginess to be persuasive and compelling.

Vogue SG’s editor-in-chief confirms he’s leaving the magazine with a “final Editor’s Letter”

The rumours are true. Norman Tan, the Aussie editor-in-chief of Vogue SG is leaving the magazine. On Instagram four days ago, Mr Tan shared a photograph of “the last issue” of the title he has edited for the past two years, as well as the ‘Editor’s Letter’ he has penned to say goodbye. It is not a maudlin farewell note. In fact, it sounded rather cheery. And quite sweet, as he probably intended it to be, using cake as a fluffy metaphor: When he was young, he wrote, “the fashion industry seemed like a fantastical tiered chiffon cake, piled high with frosted cream and painted in bright pastel hues”. This is clearly not the pandan variety that many of us are familiar with—the unadorned, flavourful green kek. Till the end, Mr Tan continues to pitch himself as the well-dressed foreigner-made-good-here. And, 11 years after his arrival on our island, “not only is cake in the menu”, he was “allowed into the kitchen”. The Chinese saying 入得了厨房出得了厅堂 (referring to women who, when skilled in the kitchen, can do anything outside of it) comes to mind! And, as editor, “concoct(s) recipes for fashion stories… selecting the best ingredients to realise the most delectable creations”.

He continued—pâtisserie (still) in the picture: “It’s easy to see the finished meringue of a magical story and forget the long hours it took to beat those stiff peaks into action.” We now know with certainty that Mr Tan is no baker, just as some observers consider him to be no editor of fashion. Egg whites for meringues usually require between five to ten minutes of beating (Yotam Ottolenghi prefers the latter) to reach the desired stiffness. Never “long hours”. Even a home baker knows one can really take it too far. Over-beating—usually more than 15 minutes—can do serious damage to the meringue. In fact, working the balloon whisk over the egg whites for too long can cause a decrease in volume in the meringue, and the mixture collapses and may even look curdled. The structure of the egg whites is compromised and liquid will seep out. Not quite the “stiff peaks” Mr Tan was aiming to achieve.

According to our trusty Larousse Gastronomique, the meringue was the creation of a Swiss pâtissier called Gasparini, and the light, candy-like pastry (back then, it was meringue ordinaire, not the coloured and flavoured bites they are now) was a favourite of Marie Antoinette, who adored it so much that she apparently submitted herself to manual labour and made them with her own delicate hands in the kitchen of the Trianon. It is interesting that Mr Tan used the doomed queen’s favourite sweetmeat as figure of speech to describe his professional output. Was he saying that the editorial contents—or “delectable creations”—that he took “long hours… to beat” are, in the end, merely airy confections? Just as pavlova—the meringue-based dessert of his homeland—is, even when it could be, as he would say, “piled high” with fruit. Airiness aside, could the textual and visual stories he ran in the magazine be the editorial equivalent of empty calories?

Industry chatter says Norman Tan’s leaving Vogue SG is related to a particular trouble at the magazine (we are unable to independently verify this). Last month, the Ministry of Communication and Information (MCI) revoked the title’s license to publish and then granted them six months after Vogue SG appealed. According to MCI, the magazine “had breached the content guidelines for local lifestyle magazines on four occasions within the past two years, for nudity and content that promoted non-traditional families”. All of this happened under Mr Tan’s watch. Four days after he shared on IG that he would be leaving the periodical, he posted a slide show of “two years of Vogue SG covers”. Not a single one struck us as striking. Were we “too harsh”, as a magazine veteran wondered when we said we were not impressed? For his swan-song cover, Mr Tan featured Rina Sawayama, the Japanese-British singer-songwriter, dressed in an “animal-free YSL coat” and a pair of towering heels. (This isn’t the first cover featuring shaggy fur this year. On the August/September issue, Cardi B wore a similar.) Is the magazine really communicating with the readers here? How does a woman relate to another, cloaked like a street walker on Rue Saint Denis in winter? And why that Slime green for the festive season? And, does it all amount to “glory”, as the sole cover blurb states? Or were we not able to see that it was all confectionary fluff?

A magazine is allegedly tardy when it comes to the payment of their freelancers. Instagram comes to the rescue

With some organisations, scandals can come annually. Last year, before their first issue was published, Vogue Singapore (SG) was exposed for a little discreditable action: the editorial team flouted social distancing rules when returning to work in the office, following the lifting of the Circuit Breaker some 13 months back. This year, Vogue SG’s name was dipped into the gutter again when one 17-part post in Instagram Stories appeared, and was shared among folks of the fashion-media community. Airtomyearth, attributed to stylist and creative director Jamie-Maree Shipton, earlier today revealed that the Conde Nast magazine allegedly has not paid her for services already rendered. “VOGUESINGAPORE really out here not paying people!! (all red font)” went the opening header. This appeared to be directed at the management than the editorial team. In the sixth slide, Ms Shipton addressed her audience directly via video: “Okay, guess what? I am getting paid tomorrow, guys”, suggesting payment due to her far earlier would not be settled until the day after today, finally. There might also have been some altercation prior as she said, “It really should not have to fight (sic) if it’s that easy for you to pay me.”

Melbourne-born, London-based Jamie-Maree Shipton is known to be vocal about the industry that she works in, and is not afraid to tell it like it is. Did Vogue SG find the wrong feathers to ruffle? Airtomyearth has a not unimpressive 65,100 followers on Instagram, many are fashion folks or fellow stylists. Based on what Ms Shipton posts on IG, it is hard to define what is characteristic of her styling. Some might call it rojak, made more jumbled by what could be Barbie’s cast-offs and more alluring by contrived edginess, but it is unlikely any one would say she does not have a point of view or a clear voice. The latter she used with directness to draw attention to Vogue SG’s supposed professional shortcomings. But the self-professed Balenciaga junkie, who has styled for titles such as i-D and Vogue Italia, and the luxury department store in London, Selfridges, did not entirely slam our comeback Vogue. In fact, she offered a kindly tone: “in the end, they should do better; they really should just be doing better. Communicating clearly—it costs you nothing.”

It seems that Vogue SG’s not “doing better” was their inability to pay within the common 30 days from the date of invoice. According to Ms Shipton, the magazine’s payment terms are “60 days after publishing”, as opposed to “the industry standard of 30”. She did not, however, reveal the number of days from the date of invoice to the day when the title is published, which may mean that freelancers could have waited far longer to be paid since completion of their respective job. This extended two-month period is purportedly “to give more time and avoid lateness”. She struggled to define what the publisher meant by “lateness”. Ms Shipton added, as if to play down her dismay and to be reasonable, “let’s not do that; let’s just be accountable that if, okay, you don’t have money, say it upfront. Imagine what it feels like to be an individual struggling the same as you face as a company.” With pandemic-year businesses going all out to stay afloat, it would not surprise anyone to learn that the publisher of Vogue SG, Indochine Media Ventures (IMV), are operating on shaky financial grounds.

Vogue SG’s first anniversary issue will likely hit the newsstand at the end of this month. A year ago, the title launched a bi-monthly issue. They are still out once every two months, which strokes the chatter that IMV has not made money—or enough—to make Vogue SG a monthly. It is unsurprising that despite a reportedly lean budget, the magazine has yet to break even (some observers say that, given the present unfavourable business conditions for magazines, it’d take more than a year, if breaking even is possible for new titles). The publisher of Vogue SG is Bettina von Schlippe, the wife of IMV’s president, Michael von Schlippe. Ms von Schlippe has been generally quiet about her plans for the magazine. She has not commented publicly on its financial health. But one media veteran told us, “Buro 24/7 wasn’t exactly successful under her watch, yet they still installed her at Vogue.” It is not known if Ms Schlippe is aware of the payment issues now being shared on IG.

Jamie-Maree Shipton’s post not only drew attention to the payment problems she encountered, it also opened the proverbial can of worms. Other Vogue SG freelancers started sharing their stories of non- or late payment (including out-of-pocket expenses), and no replies to e-mails, which prompted Ms Shipton to write, after tagging VogueSG, the editor, and the fashion director, “I see a pattern of mistreatment and non-payment” (the post was later removed). She even offered to help those in similar predicament as she is, telling “everyone who has DM-ed (her) about Vogue (SG? We were still on the same thread)” that if they have not received a reply from the magazine, “I’ll help you.” She added, addressing the magazine, “communicate clearly. It costs you nothing. If you’re going to have to struggle paying, just communicate it. It is better than having a whole lot of people feel like shit and taken advantage of because of actions directly related to you.”

But perhaps what was startling and a revelation was Ms Shipton saying, “also the people who work at Vogue DM-ing me, that it’s just as bad when you work there, I feel for you; I really do.” Was she referring to Vogue SG? Could this be implying that there is unhappiness within the organisation? Has internal strife been revealed to an outsider? Ms Shipton’s post was primarily about late payment. Is it possible that the staffers at Vogue SG, too, were not paid on time? She was, however, reassuring, striking a rather conciliatory note in conclusion, “But you know what? We’re going to make a change; we’re going to make a change.” How she and those affected would do that, she did not say.

Note: SOTD is unable to independently verify Jamie-Maree Shipton’s claims

Update (4 Aug 2021, 01:45): the said post in Instagram Stories has been deleted

Update (8 August 2021, 09:00): It was brought to our attention that Indochine Media Ventures has been renamed as Media Publishares. As of now, the URL ivm.com.sg continues to host Media Publishares. According to their website, “Media Publishares has over 10 years’ experience in digital communication, luxury print publishing, and events across Southeast Asia.” The first editorial mention of Media Publishares that we came across was in a Vogue Business article—published on 3 August—about NFT marketplaces. It identifies Media Publishares as the “parent company” of Vogue Singapore. Public records show that the company was incorporated in June last year. Hitherto, there is no official statement for the reason of the name change

Update: (8 September 2021, 02:30): Media Publishares now has its own URL mediapublishares.sg. Curiously, under the ‘Portfolio’ tab, only three titles are listed: Buro, Esquire, and Robb Report. There is no mention of Vogue Sg

Illustration: Just So

…cover to cover. Is it any good? Do we finally get our own voice? Or, is the magazine still shaped by angmo hands?

One of the three Vogue SG covers

It isn’t known if there is ever an edition of Vogue, among the now 27, raised from the dead. We dug, but we didn’t find any. So Vogue Singapore is the first. It is also uncertain if there was ever such a short-lived edition of Vogue. When our very first issue—with Joan Chen on the cover, photographed, expectedly, by Russell Wong—appeared in September 1994, no one suspected, although many feared, it would close—just twenty nine months later. We looked into that too: no Vogue anywhere in the world has ever died as a two-and-half-year-old.

In that sense, we are unique. It is here that international magazines have a second chance at life. Some may remember that Elle SG, born in 1993 and killed off in 2018, too, was resurrected—in 2019. But Vogue SG took a longer time to be raised from the dead: 23 years. That’s about a third of the age of Singapore’s oldest and best-selling women’s magazine Her World (60 this year). In these two decades plus, we saw the rise of digital media and the decline of print, and everything between that benefitted from the over-prized tag influencer. Vogue SG’s “Issue One—autumn/winter 2020—” arrives at not just a time that’s drastically changed by a still-raging pandemic (not, to us, “post-”), but also when magazines are increasingly unable to deliver to a reading public that expects stronger content, and more, not less.

Since this is the second time Vogue SG is trying to make it here, we don’t feel we need to check mercy at the front door. Talking about front, the launch issue comes with three covers that editor-in-chief Norman Tan grandly calls “triptych”, a pretentious reference to fine art for a title that has yet to prove itself, fashion-wise, let alone a treatise on art. On Instagram, Mr Tan touts the covers as “collectible”. One cover for a debut issue can’t be cherished enough for posterity or profit through eBay later? The EIC explains in his Editor’s Letter: the three are “to make a clear statement about what Vogue Singapore stands for—beauty, innovation, intelligence, sophistication, diversity, inclusion—as personified by three women hailing from different parts of Asia.”

Three is better than one? One the covers, (from left) Diya Prabhakar, Ju Xiaowen, and Nana Komatsu

That sounds like a strategic placement—to go beyond the dot. Singaporean women are not diverse enough; their ethnic plurality, and cultural, inadequate. Vogue SG needs to cast its net further afield. In fact, According to the privately held Condé Nast’s own media statement, “Vogue Singapore aims to establish itself as the region’s go-to fashion resource… with intelligent and impactful content that celebrates Vogue’s new audience in Southeast Asia”. Mr Tan wrote, in the preface to a special, boxed edition distributed to select recipients, promising this elite bunch that they “will experience what Vogue Singapore stands for—thought-provoking stories re-imagined with digital innovation with the people and culture of Southeast Asia firmly in the spotlight.”

Going by the three covers, it seems the title is even greedier: it aims to target the whole of Asia, not just SEA. That got us wondering—would people in Vietnam, for example, read a magazine identified by the city in which it is produced? What about China or Japan (where two of the cover girls are from)? If any of the non-English-speaking countries needed an English-language Vogue, would they not read the British or American (or even Australian) version? We reached out to our friends in the region for a smidgen of insight. An art director in Bangkok flatly said “no” to us. “We do read our Thai edition,” she added. One marketing head from Shanghai told us, “Because of my job, I read as many foreign Vogues as I can, but,” she added delightfully in Mandarin, “我们有自己的看啊!” (we have our own to read). Similarly, a manager from a tech company in Tokyo said, when asked, “I do read the Japanese Vogue, although my diet consists mostly of local magazines.”

In fashion publications, we do judge them by their covers. That’s why we remember Anna Wintour’s debut Vogue cover in November 1988, with that Christian Lacroix cross (now favoured by Chanel) or the late Liz Tilberis’s debut for Harper’s Bazaar, four years later, in September 1992, featuring Linda Evangelista, as if catching the third ‘A’, dislodged from the masthead. Ours needed to be launched with a bang, and that means triple the effect, and, hence, the power, the response, the influence? Mr Tan told South China Morning Post that “it’s been tough” and “super difficult”, and understandably so, given the Circuit Breaker restrictions during a time when the editorial department was visibly and delightfully working in full gear, but despite the difficulties, the magazine did not see it appropriate—even prudent—to launch with just one cover.

Back issues? Vogue SG strikes with three

More Vogue SG covers prove one thing: there are no Singaporean fashion photographers! All three are shot by foreigners: Singaporean model Diya Prabhakar’s cover was lensed by Canadian Bryan Huynh. Chinese model Ju Xiaowen was shot by New York-based New Zealander Gregory Harris and Japanese actress/model Nana Komatsu by Tokyo-based Chinese Fish Zhang. These days fashion photography is so subjective that it is hard to say which among the three is the best (or the worst), but something can be noted about the need for graphic intervention rather than letting the photographs work alone. All three cover girls are set within an oval, as if to create a counterpoint to otherwise unremarkable photographs. In the case of Ms Prabhakar, she is surrounded by indistinct digital flowers that seem to enhance the coldness of her lifeless expression.

While we can finally call this our own Vogue, the magazine isn’t, in fact, entirely shaped by local hands. Two countries pop up when joining the dots: Australia and Russia. Whether by chance or design, Vogue SG can’t de-link itself from Australia. The ditorial head of both Vogue SGs, past and present, was and is connected to Down Under: first, Nancy Pilcher (Vogue Australia, 1989—1997. Ms Pilcher is, in fact, an American, and, since leaving Condé Nast in 2013, has returned to the United States) and now, Norman Tan, from the coastal city of Melbourne. It is rather ironic that despite critics attributing the first Vogue SG’s failure to its Aussie signature, its come-back is helmed by one who hails from the country from which their Vogue could not thrust ours to greater glory.

Augmenting the foreign-seeming setup is the British art director Henry Thomas Lloyd, who has worked for Love, Pop, and Another, and who fashions our Vogue as if it’s one more alt title. There is also publisher Bettina von Schlippe, a German PR/media executive who once worked for Condé Nast Russia, and was formerly the publisher of Buro, the digital title by Vogue SG licensee Indochine Media Ventures (IMV). She is also the CEO and founder of R.S.V.P Agency, touted on their website as “a fashion & lifestyle marketing communications agency with 16 years of experience in Russia”. Ms von Schlippe is married to Michael Von Schlippe, the president of IMV, the ten-year-old publishing house, founded and based here on our island, with offices also established in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, and with connections to Condé Nast Russia too, as he had also previously worked there. Ms von Schlippe as the publisher of Vogue SG, in spite of her experience, prompted critics to suggest that nepotism was at play. It is indeed not often that one sees a husband’s name atop a wife’s under the cross-head ‘Management’.

With a marketing budget, Vogue SG made sure it stood out at Kinokuniya

That EIC Norman Tan, ex-editor of IMV title Esquire SG, and a few members of his team are former IMV employees added to the 自己人顾自己人 (zi ji ren gu zi ji ren or “own people caring for own people”) perception—not, in fact, uncommon in the publishing world. Still, this led to some industry watchers wondering if Vogue SG would have the touch of Buro, Robb Report (another IMV brand), and even Esquire SG. For certain, the anticipated magazine is not a Vogue that die-hards would find compelling, breathtaking, and immersive enough to want to rush out to buy a copy, even just to hold. As Mr Tan was involved in or contributed to IMV titles, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he brought along with him a scintilla of his editorial past. But Vogue, despite its evolutionary changes, is still, foremost, a fashion title.

And it is the fashion in Vogue SG—and how it’s presented—that we find hard to connect. Or appreciate. There is a reason that Vogue goes by the unofficial description “fashion bible”. Nothing in the pages of the SG edition scratches the surface of fashion at its most creative, expressive, and refined, let alone plunges biblical depths. Even Ms Prabhakar’s Balenciaga cover dress is ineffectual, as if it was an afterthought, plonked on her—nothing else fits, this would do. She does not look like she likes wearing it or knows what to with it; she looks the novice that she is (more so alongside the spreads featuring Ju Xiaowen and Nana Komatsu). Mr Balenciaga himself once said, “A woman has no need to be perfect or even beautiful to wear my dresses. The dress will do all that for her.” Not this one.

Part reality, part virtuality (spot the QR codes that link you to online content), Vogue SG tries to straddle two sides of the digital divide, but balancing acts, as even gymnasts will say, are not easy to put up. One misstep and you’ll be split the wrong way. The magazine seems so concerned with its cyber-self (another story altogether)—“We love the transportive power of a well thought-out fashion story played out in print, but to add a new dimension to the experience, we’ve engaged the power of digital multimedia,” as Mr Tan wrote in his Editor’s Letter (an odd word choice that, conversely, suggests eras past)—that it feels like a by-product of its online preoccupation. The fantasies or “fashion stories” present a feckless telling, as if everything happens on cyber-streets than real ones. And to enhance its connection to the digital sphere, CGI is applied, as in the jejune spread featuring Ms Prabhakar or the incomprehensible and indistinct digital orchid that tells you the magazine tries—and too hard—to be ahead of the humdrum rest.

We weren’t sure if we are on a page from Vogue SG or Vogue Patterns

Cover girl Diya Prabhakar looks the modeling novice that she is throughout the spread that featured her

It is not easy to make one’s way through the pages of Vogue SG to the last. Visual irregularities were inexplicably set up to throw you off-course. Odd blank spaces (even when space is an element of design, these still look odd), the narrowest bottom margin, page designs that look like they are from another (lesser?) title—they make one pause and wonder. Need they really do that? One SOTD follower WeChatted us, “less than five minutes flipping the magazine and I am confused. It DOES NOT LOOK LIKE VOGUE (caps, all hers)!” She is not wrong. We were surprised by how random and free-form the magazine appears visually. What is certain and annoying is the palpable need to look cool and edgy, and at the forefront (of whatever)—those qualities that are made ineffable by the shifting nature of fashion. When one tries to make the unfashionable fashionable, there’s a good chance you might be stuck in the former.

Experienced magazine folks might feel that perhaps the editors did away with the discipline of rigorous page planning. There is a sense that, in order to yield a not-unimpressive 266 pages, many of them had to serve as mere fillers. Content pages, for example, stretched to five (the first, with two columns, does not read from left to right. For all the talk of “innovation”, these extra pages are still an old-fashioned provision of additional right-hand pages for single-page ads). There are also generous two-page intros to sections, pull quotes floating in half-a-page of emptiness, and an essay by Amanda Lee Koe extended over ten when two would be enough—just three examples of injudicious use of space. This stretch-and-stretch approach to filling pages with meaningful content that they probably could not, makes for extremely tiring reading. Not to mention, a total waste of paper.

Perhaps the most irritating, “as you digest this fashion book—artfully crafted with our own Vogue Singapore font inspired by Sanskrit found on the Singapore Stone (a 13th century—possibly earlier—artifact)”, is this very font itself. You first see it on the cover. And it’s not at once easy to read. Hieroglyphs are easier to decipher. Our art director friend from Bangkok said to us, “Don’t you think it’s very Love?” We had to point her to the magazine’s art director. The font is also applied as a drop cap (always hard to read. Why stump the reader right from the start of articles?), to fill spaces, and as background graphic on which photographs are placed. Giving the font a historical reference does not lend it typographical heft. The squiggles, appearing like litter (you’d want to scratch them off!), are perhaps a deliberate contrast to the other oddities: font colour similar to the page, type size of running heads way smaller than the page numbers, both appearing in the same page and, in some cases, page numbers in the same point size as headlines. At this point, we can think of no other expression than the Hokkien geh kiang—roughly, excess of cleverness.

Graphic design book or fashion magazine?

The printer’s fault?

Although Vogue SG, version 1, did not last long, we were, in fact, the first-ever Vogue published in Asia back in 1994, the year we had to pay GST for the first time. Then came Korea in August 1996, Taiwan in October 1996, Japan in September 1999, China in September 2005, India in October 2007, Thailand in February 2013, and Hong Kong in March 2019. And Vogue SG again, in September 2020. We’re now the 8th Asian Vogue. When Vogue Thailand’s first issue hit the newsstand in 2013, it was sold out “within days”, according to The Nation. How our Vogue will fare is hard to say, given the precariousness of the present and the uncertainty of the future. The hope is that Vogue SG won’t suffer a second death.

But its prospect looks a tad dim. Some industry watchers wonder if it augurs well for the magazine to launch with a bimonthly issue (and apparently for the next issue too). It goes by the season: autumn/winter (does that mean that, in essence, there will only be two issues a year?). As far as we are aware, this is the first Vogue edition to debut in such a manner. Two issues of Vogue SG, presumably, for the rest of the year to support an editorial team that has been in place since at least April (if not earlier), when the EIC was announced, is daunting to consider. This led to the conclusion that the editorial team of IMV’s Buro had to be sacrificed to keep Vogue SG afloat.

Carrie Bradshaw had said, not frivolously, “Sometimes, I would buy Vogue instead of dinner.” It is hard to imagine anyone doing that here. We love our char kuay teow too much. The truth is, many of us are buying fewer magazines, even if we might still be reading them. Vogue SG arrives amid the very real declining habit of purchasing and then perusing fashion titles. There would have to be very compelling reasons to reverse that. Given its unspectacular debut, it would require the motivation of rabid fans (do they still exist?) to see the magazine snapped up at newsstands. Unlike Malcom McClaren, however, we simply couldn’t go Deep in Vogue.

Photos: Zhao Xiangji