R.S.V.P. : Magazines Make Moves on Social Scene
Anyone who’s checked the in-box for invitations lately will recognize a new development on the social scene. Magazines--not people--are the new Perle Mestas of the young L.A. party world, as well as its arbiters of style.
These new hosts-with-the-most range from big-gun publications like Elle, Glamour and GQ to arrivistes like L.A. Style, Details and In Fashion. Aggressively trying to promote themselves, the magazines hook up with department stores, restaurants, clubs, causes, or even cultural institutions to co-sponsor events.
Last month, when Bloomingdale’s launched its promotion of California merchandise, “California: The New International Style,” L.A. Style co-hosted the opening night party. Earlier this spring, when the Museum of Contemporary Art’s young support group, the MOCA Contemporaries, wanted to put on a fund-raiser, Elle staged a fashion show for the organization at Robinson’s in Beverly Hills. And Details, the avant-garde New York fashion publication, acted as host of the opening of the restaurant Cafe Mambo in Hollywood, even though the only bill it footed was the printing of invitations.
Cafe Mambo owner Mario Tamayo--who paid the major bills for food and service for that party and others he has produced with the magazine since--says such arrangements are the wave of the future. “It really helps out somebody trying to launch a big project,” says Tamayo, who has also collaborated with L.A. Style and Exposure magazines. “You do it for publicity, as it were,” he says. “You get press from it; you get celebrities. And people like the idea of attending. They want to be a fabulous somebody, and they think they’ll get mentioned in the magazine.” For the Cafe Mambo party, Details gave the party a full page of coverage, and L.A. Style and L.A. Weekly covered the event as well.
Details has become one of the city’s most conspicuous party-givers, tossing an assortment of events, such as last month’s opening of Tamayo’s Card Club in Hollywood, a nightclub that existed only for the month of April, and a fashion show at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills last year. “I learned from Interview. Six or seven years ago, they had the hottest parties in New York,” says Details’ Los Angeles-based associate publisher Dan Gershon.
He proudly affirms that aside from providing invitations, his magazine has no budget whatsoever for the flood of parties it puts on. “I never pay for things,” says Gershon, a former rock promoter. Likewise, Tamayo has only on occasion taken out advertising in the magazine.
‘Everyone Is Happy’
However, Gershon may secure a sponsor for liquid refreshment, such as New York Seltzer, an advertiser in the magazine, in return for credit on the invitation. “So everyone is happy,” says Gershon.
Details’ major contribution to an event is its guest list, or rather one of three lists of varying social rank which Gershon has stored in his computer. There’s the triple-A list of 60 top-drawer trendies--heavily weighted with younger members of the press and people ranging from artist Richard Duardo and fashion designers Richard Tyler and Mark Eisen to KROQ disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer. Then there’s the double-A list of 200 people of secondary importance, and the more broad-based A-list of 400 names.
“It’s one of the new forms of direct marketing,” says Gershon. “It’s reaching out to a marketplace of people who do things first. That’s 1% of the population, and they bring in the 3% behind them of people who do things near-first, and that brings in the rest of the world.”
Joie Davidow, L.A. Style’s executive publisher and editor in chief, says that partying is the magazine’s sole form of promotion, since it doesn’t advertise, other than on the occasional bus shelter. The publication’s society columnist Anne Crawford doubles as its event organizer. Davidow sees events, such as its four-year anniversary bash at the Pacific Design Center next month, not only as a vehicle for raising the magazine’s profile, but--by drawing on a guest list of influential people--as a potent form of marketing.
To celebrate its June issue, dedicated to a history of photography, L.A. Style co-hosted--and in this case, co-hosted also meant paying the bills--a cocktail party at the G. Ray Hawkins photography gallery last Tuesday.
High-Profile Guests
Of the 175 or so guests who were invited, 150 came from L.A. Style’s list of high-profile, art-scene types, including chic photographers and, of course, press. Among those at the party were Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, model Twinka Thiebaud, photographers Robert Heinecken and Eileen Cowan.
“It’s their party at my gallery, and they’re allowing us to invite a few people,” says Hawkins, who will exhibit photography highlighted in the issue. The photographs will come from several galleries, including his own.
How does Hawkins benefit? “The reward is a combination of goodwill and P.R., and there will be some very nice things for sale. And of course we work on a commission for anything that sells,” he explains.
The venue may get a good party and a golden opportunity for publicity out of the arrangement. For fashion publications such as Elle and Glamour, which produce elaborately staged fashion shows, the events “bring alive the pages of the magazine” for a magazine’s readers, as Elle’s retail director, Barbara Szpak, puts it.
Elle invites local subscribers to its events. L.A. Style does not. Magazines are also divided on the issue of passing out free copies at sponsored events. At the MOCA show, Elle passed out gift bags containing a current issue of the magazine, but GQ’s marketing services director, Martha McCully, says it doesn’t pass out magazines since most of its guests are subscribers anyway.
Primarily, magazines use such events to solidify their relationships with advertisers. “The buzz word in magazines is added value, “ says Jack Kliger, publisher of Glamour. “It’s not enough to run a page (of advertising), it’s what do we do for (their) business,” he says of advertisers’ new requests.
Special Departments
Consequently, large publications are now doing quite a lot for their advertisers’ dollars. Elle staffs a 10-person retail department in its New York business office (as opposed to editorial office) to stage fashion shows in department stores around the country, while Glamour staffs a seven-person special events department.
Each magazine typically dispatches two or more staff members across the country to coordinate shows in order to exert control over events carrying its imprimatur. The department stores generally pay the costs of producing events, such as models’ fees, food and lighting.
Hawaiian Night for Music Center
“I don’t want anyone here to think this is a free dinner,” host David Murdock said to the formally clad guests gathered in his palatial Bel-Air home, Bellagio House, for the “Island of Lanai Preview Dinner” Thursday in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Music Center. “You’re all here for ulterior motives.”
The motive was selling the final vacancies for 20 couples (there are 50 in all) who will be Murdock’s guests at a weekend marking the opening of his Lanai resort hideaway in Hawaii next February. A $25,000 donation to the Music Center buys a spot.
