LONDON — Vogue Hong Kong will launch the primary challenge of its males’s put on providing Vogue Man on Monday, with “Parasite” star Park Seo Jun on the 2 covers, carrying Louis Vuitton designed by Virgil Abloh on each.
The native version, a licensing deal between Condé Nast and Rubicon Media Ltd., revealed final October that the biannual title will probably be launched along with the April and September problems with Vogue Hong Kong, making it the sixth Vogue males’s title following Vogue Hommes in France, L’Uomo Vogue in Italy and Vogue Man in Arabia, Ukraine and the Netherlands.
Grant Pearce, artistic director of Vogue Man Hong Kong, mentioned it takes some braveness to launch a title at a really troublesome time. Having labored on the launches of GQ in Australia, Japan and China, Pearce is a former veteran at Condé Nast. He left the corporate on the finish of 2019 and moved again to Sydney from Shanghai.
“I acquired a really pretty response from Mr. Giorgio Armani, for instance, who mainly was so glad to see a males’s journal launching fairly than closing. I really feel like that’s what normally, globally, individuals are very supportive of — one thing that’s making an attempt to ignite trend curiosity, and assist trend however in a conventional means.
“The helps have been fairly good in the event you take a look at the advertisers.…It’s fairly sturdy, and it additionally suggests that folks aren’t giving up on Hong Kong, individuals are truly supporting Hong Kong and I feel that’s a beautiful message to enter the market. Hong Kong is a extremely nice metropolis and we need to see it proceed to be an important metropolis,” Pearce mentioned.
He added that though the duvet selection is just not his determination to make, it sends a transparent message that this native version goals to “resonate past Hong Kong.” To wit, Park is without doubt one of the most adopted South Korean actors on Instagram with 17.56 million followers.
The challenge additionally options mannequin Jordan Barrett, the brand new “Gossip Girl” star Evan Mock, Thai romantic comedy-drama “2Gether” lead actors Metawin Opas-iamkajorn and Vachirawit Chiva-aree, in addition to rising Hong Kong actor Terrance Lau.
“Right now, from a trend, music, and developmental standpoint, I feel [South] Korea is forging forward. Yes, it might have been somebody from Hong Kong on the duvet, in fact, however I felt that…it was all about how will we break into the market, and one of many vital issues all of us have to consider proper now’s how do you get out of home and go worldwide,” he mentioned.
Pearce acknowledged that Vogue Man Hong Kong is trying to current a brand new narrative out there as a result of native rivals like Tatler have put loads of Hong Kong celebrities and personalities on the duvet.
“You need to look totally different as a result of it’s very simple to look the identical. There are already sturdy males’s titles in Hong Kong,” he added. “If you take a look at the contents of the style pages particularly. It’s a really sturdy group of rising skills, and so they all agreed to be part of it as a result of we did go on a worldwide idea. We actually wished to attempt to get individuals who had been profitable in their very own proper, and that’s what we wished to realize with the combination of movie star in there.”
With sturdy and forward-thinking native trend consumption within the metropolis, Pearce additionally thinks {that a} Vogue Man idea is extra applicable within the Hong Kong market than a normal curiosity title.
“I feel area of interest merchandise are rather more applicable than normal as a result of males who’ve turn out to be rather more assured of their perspective, in the best way they gown and groom. It doesn’t imply you may’t have a GQ in the identical market. It’s a special client,” he mentioned. “Also if you consider the retail sector in Hong Kong, shops like I.T. and Joyce have been so sturdy and supportive of males’s designer trend. Those are the shoppers who will purchase this journal.”
The title is run with a small workforce. Pearce hopes that the primary challenge will probably be properly obtained, and Vogue Man Hong Kong can ultimately develop its personal presence throughout all channels.
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