Vogue Living editor Rebecca Caratti has been frantic in the days leading up to the launch of the magazine’s redesigned issue on Thursday August 16.
“I am just in a cab heading to the airport feeling tired,” she told Mediaweek.
“I have been presenting the redesign to our Sydney and Melbourne clients for the past few days.
“It’s a nice way to get everyone into one room and let them know about the new era of Vogue Living.”
Caratti was appointed the editor of NewsLifeMedia’s Vogue Living in March 2018. The appointment came nearly a year after its former editor Neale Whittaker took a step back from the position. Edwina McCann had been looking after the brand in the time between the two appointments.
“When you inherit something, you need to make it your own,” Caratti said. “I accepted this job when I was still on maternity leave so I had the time to indulge in the magazine and read it back to front. I thought about what I thought was interesting and what I thought could use more feminine touch. That is what I have tried to bring into the magazine because predominantly our readers are female.”
Caratti joined Vogue Living amid an editorial shake-up at NewsLifeMedia, which saw McCann become the editorial director of Vogue, Vogue Living and GQ. Caratti has worked with McCann for some time now and used to be the market editor of Harper’s Bazaar when McCann was its editor. “She has always been my career mentor, so I have a great working relationship with her,” Caratti said.
The Vogue Living brand is unique to Australia and with its 50-year history, it is a “heritage brand” in the local market. Therefore, Caratti said, she didn’t want to or feel the need to change too much. However, she did introduce four editorial pillars: VLove (latest designs, trends and products), VLife (a behind-the-scenes look at the life of artists, designers and creative), VLiving (a tour of homes featured in the magazine or online) and VList (travel and dining guide).
“The way the media is changing, you need to see print as a coffee table book or a piece of art. I really wanted to let things like the images breathe and keep long-form stories so people would see it as an indulgent book that they can collect.
“A lot of our readers collect Vogue Living issues.”
Being a homes and interiors title, Vogue Living is a “visual brand”, Caratti said. Therefore, it comes with little surprise that its choice of platform is Instagram.
“We have one of the largest social footprints of any magazine brand in Australia,” Caratti said. “We reach over 3.3 million people digitally.
“Instagram stories are a great traffic driver for us.”
Caratti comes from a digital background. She was the founding editor of Buro 24×7. This experience, she said, will allow her to have deeper conversations with the clients of Vogue Living and help them understand the many facets of the brand they can use to deliver their brand message. She identified this as one of its biggest growth opportunities. Along with this, Caratti is looking at the event space too.
“We have partnered with BMW this year for our first Women of Excellence event, which is a speaker series we will be holding in Melbourne and Sydney,” Caratti said. The function will feature panels of leading architects and designers talking about the industry. “I hope to see more events in the Vogue Living future.”