It was a cold and wet Friday afternoon when the bell at the gate rang. A delivery man handed over a mysterious black box wrapped with a white ribbon. And inside was just the thing to say goodbye long working week, and hello weekend. A fantastic fashion supplement to the Sunday Times, called Fashion Weekly, filled to the brim with simply stunning stylish things.
“The new supplement offers readers an up-to-the-minute overview of current fashion and beauty styles and trends and advice on how to make the best of them, but, importantly, it also provides advertisers with a dedicated environment in which to talk to our audience,” says Susan Russell, publisher of the lifestyle supplements.
The stylish supplement is edited by Sarah Buitendach, who has made a name for herself in the lifestyle media industry as a stylist, writer and editor on a number of publications. ”
“We’re really looking forward to the first edition, the snappy, jigsaw-like layout, will provide news in a short snippet format with a changing mix of shopping, new products and quick reads. Q&A with fashion designers and industry players as well as themed and seasonal fashion edits will give readers everything they need to know to stay up to date,” she says.
But the thinking goes a step further. Fashion featured in the supplement will be available online via a partnership with group buying site, Citymob. “We’ll be enabling ecommerce directly from our content, which is a first for our newspaper. From Sunday 5 May, a special fashion popup shop will be hosted within a dedicated Sunday Times microsite on Citymob,at www.citymob.co.za/sunday. It’s exciting to extend our brands into the digital space in a way that has real traction for our readers,” says Ben Williams, head of eCommerce at Times Media Group, publishers of the Sunday Times.
The cover pays homage to that wonderful late sixties style, the mod look (remember The Who’s cult classic Quadrophenia?) but gives it a quirky update. Using black and white graphics and a colour scheme of pale pink, oxblood red, black and white, it simply shouts MODERN classic.
Personally, I have a yen for that rather nice green Ted Baker faux snakeskin bag in the weekly round up, titled A Week’s Worth of Wanting…
The supplement launches is this Sunday’s edition of the Sunday Times.
