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1:13Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's fashion and beauty memo line sheet. And today with me on the show are ID Magazine's Carly Kloss and Tom Betridge to talk the past, present, and future of the title.

1:31Before we get going, I wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast, you'll definitely love Puck, where I send an email called Line Sheet. If you're a fashion person, you get that reference. It's an original look at what's really going on inside the fashion and beauty industries.

1:50Line with me, a subscription to Puck gains you access to an unmatched roster of experts reporting on powerful people and companies in entertainment, media, sports, politics, finance, the art world, and much more. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount. Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join Puck or start a free trial.

2:15Happy Friday, everyone. Hope you're having a great week. I am sitting out the London shows to hang with my kid. So send me tips, send me fun stuff. I'll be in Milan starting next Tuesday, and then I'm in Paris for the long haul. Trying to figure out if I might leave a day or two early, but we'll see. It's hard to miss out when you have a fear of missing out. This week in Line Sheet, we've got scoops about LVMH, the future of sax, the departure of Oscar de la Renta creative directors, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia. Uh, Rachel Strugetz also has all the sales figures from Rhodes first weeks at Sephora.

2:55They are wild. Haley Bieber is really something. And Sarah Shapiro went out to Menlo park on Wednesday for the meta glasses presentation. And she has a column about that. So lots of really good stuff. Everything you want to know about what's happening in fashion and beauty. I'm going to stop talking right now so we can get going with Carly and Tom.

3:18Carly Kloss, Tom Betridge, welcome to Fashion People. Thanks for having us, Lauren. What did you all have for breakfast this morning? Okay, so I sat with my kids and ate cheesy scrambled eggs and I think a banana muffin. I also just ate what my kids ate for breakfast. Some cut up pieces of fruit and saltine crackers. You sound like the pregnant woman between the two of us to have some saltine crackers. It's a lifestyle. Yeah. That is the saltine crackers. That's a first time appearance on Fashion People. I'm very impressed. Okay. So you all are on today to talk about ID Magazine. Tom, you joined, how long has it been now?

4:12Like eight months or a year? Like around 10 months, I would say. 10 months. And Carly, you bought ID Magazine as part of your budding media empire about almost a year ago. Or was it two years ago now? I think it was actually two years ago that we started the conversations because and and actually because you're just always on it, Lauren, you don't you don't sleep. I think you were the first person to to report that I was even considering it. And that was two years ago. Yeah. Wow. Time time flies. So why don't I want to talk about the new issue. I want to talk about how the two of you got together and and what you've been developing since Tom joined eight months ago.

5:02But Carly, maybe let's start with why did you want to buy a magazine? You have this hold co or parent company called Bedford Media. You are making other acquisitions or looking at different things. What inspired you to buy ID in particular and what did you want to do with it? Sure. So I, you know, I was fortunate to be involved with Sarah Moonves in 2020 when she was buying and we brought together a group to help buy W-Miazine out of bankruptcy. And that was such an incredible sort of first foray into seeing sort of the back end of how these businesses operate and actually an entirely different vantage point on publishing and on fashion media than I have ever had.

5:57And I've grown up in this business since I'm 15 years old. It was my first vote shoot, my first ID shoot, you know. So I've been in this industry for more than half my life, but I had never been on the business side of it and the publishing side of it. And Sarah has been a longtime friend. I mean, we really started our careers at the same time, which is why, you know, that's how I got involved initially and learned so much through that experience. And so when ID was sort of going through bankruptcy or in the process with Vice, and that was sort of becoming very public about what was going on, it just really was most of all important to me that it survived and that it continued to live on because ID has such an extraordinary, not only just role in fashion history that it's played, but it's been such a, just an important launching pad for creative talent from its inception.

6:56And there's so much, I mean, my own career included, Edward Enningful, you know, one of the first shoots I ever did was with Edward and ID. You know, there's so many people who can attribute, you know, their careers and those sort of first starting opportunities to ID. And so the role that is played in our industry is so important. And also, I think it's an incredible brand. It's an incredible, you know, it's something that is both 45 years old and also as relevant today as it was half a century ago. And I think that's, for me, the opportunity to help preserve and protect a brand like that, but actually rebuild it in a really sort of forward thinking way.

7:41And especially sort of coming out of bankruptcy, there was so much that was basically broken that had to be rebuilt anyway, that it was sort of like, all right, let's think first principles about like, if you're building a publishing, you know, back of house engine from the ground up today around a legacy brand, how can, what's the best way to do that? How can you do that in a really thoughtful, lean, digitally savvy way and build for the business where it is today and certainly, you know, the opportunities moving forward. And so that was really kind of why ID was so exciting to me because it's just, I didn't want to see it go away.

8:19And I also thought there was so much untapped potential to actually build it into something so much bigger. What surprised you the most about the way a magazine or a publishing entity, because it's hard to call these things just magazines anymore, about the way they worked. Given that you're an investor in a lot of companies, you've started your own businesses, you're around a lot of entrepreneurs building things from the ground up. As someone who had worked in magazines for a long time, but in front of the camera, what surprised you about how they operate and how are you all doing things differently here?

8:57Maybe that'll bring us to how you ended up with Tom. For sure. Well, we are so lucky to have Tom leading the team and really the vision. You know, for me, I'm super entrepreneurial. I am a model by my day job. But actually, when I started in the industry, that meant one thing. This was, you know, almost 20 years ago. It was pretty crazy. The world was a different place. Media was a different place. The role of someone like a model was very much, you know, one dimensional. But over the course of my career, And really in the beginning sort of stages of it, there were many more entrepreneurial opportunities that I as a model could actually build off of my career as, you know, building, you know, one, having not just being seen, but being heard because of social media and being able to build entrepreneurial enterprises or my nonprofit off of my platform.

9:51And so I saw, I mean, I think the ways that, and I think that's what's so exciting about the ways that you can sort of leverage a brand. And we're talking about a media property, but really taking this sort of the values and the ethos of it and how to bring that to life in the world today in an incredibly sort of dynamic, multifaceted capacity across community, because that's really what it is, right? It's like you're reaching your audience, your community, and the ways that you can engage with them are, of course, print, which actually, ironically, is more in demand than ever. So, you know, print, but then also, you know, we have an article in that that Nicolai from our editorial team, you know, wrote today, and she actually like polled our audience as a part of the conversation.

10:44I mean, there's so many ways, you know, you can really actually take that brand and that sort of DNA of it and build a whole world around it. And that's really why we were so excited to bring Tom on board because he's a world builder. And, you know, his experience through so many facets of his career really, you know, made him perfect for this job. So you we we realized it's been two years, which is so now that makes sense because I was like, wait, it couldn't have just been a year. But I was sort of tracking online sheet every step of the way at your process. And, you know, there was an editor in chief there, you know, there was an editor in chief.

11:29Lauren. No. Alistair McKim, who's amazing when when you started, he ended up leaving. You took a long time to find the right person every time I heard you were talking to someone i'm calling Calling your poor publicist asking about it I appreciate that how much you care. Thank you. Yeah, I do care a lot, but um, but it took a minute for you to find tom and so tom You first of all, I thought you were My age, but you're actually 10 years younger than me Not to out you But um, but you have done so much which is interesting because Because Carly, you are also someone who has done so much and you started your career at 15.

12:11So it feels like you are sort of you, but you both are ahead of the game in many ways. But Tom, tell us a little bit about your career prior to ID and why when you met Carly, I'm curious how you all got together, but why this was an exciting opportunity to you. um yeah i mean i think that you know maybe actually starting from the end of the story i think that you know when i first spoke to carly about id you know with with this kind of job like you know being aligned with the founders or the owners is like such a crucial part of everything because i feel like you need to work from a shared vision you know in the business side of the creative side need to kind of operate in lockstep.

13:03And I think, you know, that first combo is almost like finishing each other's sentences about like what the vision for a brand like ID could be, you know? And I think that at the core of that, it's kind of like, you know, thinking about publishing outside the box of making articles and having people see them and then monetizing the eyeballs that see them. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's like the model that it operated under for so long, but it, that kind of doesn't work anymore, you know? And so something that's been like a central theme in my career, like, you know, kind of by accident in a lot of ways is like, you know, thinking about how publishers can kind of be brands and can operate like brands, you know?

13:45And so like, for example, a really formative experience was like my first job at 032C, like, you know, the year I've started there, we started like creating this merchandise line that was like you know by the time I left was in like a hundred stores um we were consulting brands like essence on how to start their own editorial platform and so like you know in a way like that kind of like ignited the spark where I was kind of like you know oh like maybe the way publishing moves forward isn't by just doing more publishing it's by like using that sort of like mechanism that makes publishing relevant and like bringing it to new places and so I think like you know when Carly and I first started talking about ID like we were very much on the same page that it was about kind of like going beyond what's been done before yeah what what was it like is Tom a lot of your experience is at newer brands I know you were the editor of High which had been around for a while, but still a new brand.

14:51O32C, not totally new, but kind of an upstart type thing. Whereas ID, a 45-year-old brand that has had a lot of different lives already. How did you two work together to sort of find the essence of what ID was about and bring that distribute that in a modern way. I think that the first cover being an unknown was an interesting example of that and would love to talk about what you all have done with this issue. But like, how do you kind of get that essence and that brand part right for these new modes of distribution that exist today? It's a good question. I mean, in a way, like I think working with a kind of like legacy brand and media like you have to kind of throw yourself into the archive and really kind of like you know not try to recreate it one-to-one but almost like decide on the themes within that archive that you want to make kind of like you know that you think are kind of relevant for the future you know and so I think that when we um we're going through kind of like the back issues of ID and kind of like, you know, sequencing the DNA of it.

16:13I think something that we were really drawn to, which you mentioned was this idea that like ID very much, you know, whether it was like Madonna or Rachel Weisz or whoever was like very much about, you know, kind of giving people their first cover or like platforming kind of unknown people. And so like our first issue very much focused on that by like, you know, discovering our own unknown cover star but then also featuring two other cover stars and Naomi Campbell and FKA Twigs who also had originally appeared on the cover of ID as unknowns and so I think in a way like you can kind of like find those things and sort of latch on to them I think another theme in the ID legacy that I find very interesting and relevant today is that like it's it was very much a DIY project, you know, in the sense that it was like totally bootstrapped by the Joneses.

17:05It was executed in this kind of punk way that's very aesthetically DIY. But I think in a way, to me, that really resonates with our climate and our culture, because like nowadays it's like almost all media is DIY, you know? So it's like, you know, whether like you have a sub stack or a podcast or, you know, you're just like a great mood board account on Instagram, like in a way, like that logic of ID very much resonates with that mode of production. So I think that that's like, you know, so we just kind of go through and just find those threads and sort of pull at them and see where they go. And just to add to that, I think that sort of democratization of voices and of access, which has been enabled by technology over the past, you know, 10, 15 years has obviously transformed and threatened the business model around media, which is part of this existential crisis of, you know, what we're seeing the whole industry have to reconfigure itself to be able to right size.

18:07But for us, you know, we're kind of coming at it on the opposite end. We're coming. This was a bankrupt small business that we believe so deeply and deserves to live on. And there is such a unbelievable richness to the archives and to the values and to the DNA of what the Joneses really started and established, that I think it's very hard to build that from the ground up today. You can build the back end of sort of how to serve it, how to distribute our content. And, you know, so this is sort of this interesting moment and the opportunity that we're so excited about with ID and really at Bedford is how do we really focus on that and, you know, allow Tom and team to manifest that into the editorial print and digital and just sort of like even experiential, like what that actually looks like, feels like that is their world.

19:06I think that the sort of strategy and business side of it, is like now is actually when everyone's running out of the burning building is where the crazy people running in. But I think that that's where the opportunity is.

19:23what does the feedback been from advertisers and a lot of that i'm sure has to do with your pitch to advertisers but my sense talking to people in the market and talking to advertisers is they don't have as much money to spend but they have money to spend and they actually probably have a little more freedom about how they can spend it what what have you all experienced when you're when you're recruiting them to be in your pages and on your platforms? I think, you know, I think advertisers have gotten really, most of them have gotten really savvy about the kind of world we're living in. And I think there's an understanding that, you know, by working with a publisher or with the platform, you're really accessing an audience that maybe you don't speak to as directly on your own you know and so I think what what's been really great to see with you know not just like you know people buying cages in the magazine but like branded content is like you know we've had a really we've had a lot of trust and buy-in to kind of create stories that you know speak to the brand and their message but are very much like geared towards our audience and like exist within our style um and i think that's just like smart business on their part you know because i think if we made something that was too brand coded it wouldn't have the same engagement or effect as uh something that's like through our lens and just to add to that you know i think advertisers want you know not just to buy an ad page, but actually, ironically, are still very interested in buying a print ad page in a really premium print product.

21:10But so that actually, I have to admit, I was blown away by over the past two issues. And just to give you some perspective, the relaunch issue that we unveiled in March was the highest grossing revenue issue ever in ID's history. And then actually, not to spoil the news, but we actually tripled that for our September issue. So, you know, that's, and we're talking about a print product here. And, you know, that to me has, is such an interesting sort of sign of advertisers still very much hear about that curation and that distribution. But it's actually part of what we've been thinking about in building this business is how do we actually better partner and align incentives?

22:01And how do we better service our partners, not just in sort of selling ad pages or fake eyeball numbers, but actually in really meaningful ways? And that's part of why I think experiential has been such a growing part of all media businesses, because that's how advertisers can actually have much deeper engagement with the people they're trying to reach. And so we really think about that, you know, because our community is very engaged. Our community is very, actually kind of runs the gamut of both deeply sort of Gen Z youth culture. And also, I mean, we're talking 45 years of an iconic brand that has represented a lot to a lot of people over, you know, many generations.

22:42So we have a really interesting engaged community that we're really thinking about how we best service then? How do we think about our audience, our brand partners, and the talent that we're working with? How did you two end up organizing the magazine in terms of where the business is based? Because ID was a UK publication. We're a global world. But one thing, and not to undermine that's congratulations on the ad revenue. That's awesome. One thing is that advertisers have more money in the U S the budgets are bigger. You just, you tend to have a bigger publication. If you base a lot of this, if you're selling through the U S if you're based in the, in the U S how much of like the sales team and all of that.

23:36And, and the editorial team ended up being based in the U S because a lot of the incremental annoying reporting I was doing was like these five people have been moved or there's been this tiny reorganization or whatever. Sorry, not sorry, you know, but, um, but you got to do your job. We appreciate it. I got to do, I got to do my job. But, but the point being like, how did it all end up netting out? Like are most, is most of the company based in the U S now, or is it sort of half and half? How did you end up managing it? Well, I'll just say that, I mean, the team is global. Uh, you know, we have an incredible chief business officer, McKeel, who is based in London.

24:14His sales team is based in London. A meaningful part of different teams on the editorial side and different sides of the commercial business are in the UK. And I have to say, yes, there are, I would say, maybe bigger budgets, especially a non-endemic in the US, but we're talking about the fashion industry, which is majority of houses are still very much, you know, European. And, you know, I think it's an interest, it's been really, I mean, an incredible testament to McKeel and Tom that they've been able to rebuild this, the commercial viability of this business, which has been, you know, I think for us, we, we, that, that, that is, that matters because that's a sign that we're this isn't a vanity project like we actually are like proving that you can do incredible work while also building like a viable business but that's really a testament to the team that's been around the table over the past year yeah and you know london is very much the spiritual home of id you know like you really can't separate it from that kind of like place culturally especially because like you know I think for so many you know of my peers from England like it's kind of like that magazine that you experience as a teenager and will forever associate with fashion and so I think you know even though the world is very much global and the way the internet works is very much global and you know we kind of you know as a team we kind of work on the cloud it kind of doesn't really matter where everyone is like I think you know like having that kind of like kind of home in London is like definitely a very big part of like our brand DNA and like the lens through which we operate and it's a global business and it's a global world I mean I think that's part of you know we the internet right like and we have uh you know it's actually been amazing you know part of the dna that we talk about like straight ups you know terry and trisha jones like you know some of the first like images in that first issue were like straight ups that that that like we get you know photographer submissions from all around the world we are working with talent all around the world so you know our team is like tom said operating in the cloud you know they're collaborating across uh no matter where geographically people sit but and and tom i suspect that you really worked for people all over the world at this point right so you are used to that sort of interaction with europe and in canada and all of that and i guess that's how we all work now where it is not you you're based in one place but that's not really where your life is yeah it's also you know i think um you just remember a high sobriety it's like our team was split across Berlin and New York.

27:24And I think it creates a really great dialectic for like an editorial team, especially because like, you know, it's very easy to like create this kind of filter bubble around the city you're in and like, you know, kind of what's going on there. And so I think having that kind of tension where it's kind of like, Oh, everyone in, you know, everyone in Europe or England is thinking about this. everyone in the states is thinking about this like our our contributors in east asia are thinking about this like you know having that kind of like chorus of opinions kind of pushing and pulling on each other i think creates a really rich team culture so i think like i don't know it almost feel like if i was making a magazine that was everyone was in the one city i almost feel like we'd be missing something yeah and and just to add to that terry johns always would say like it's it's the minestrone, right?

28:17It's like all the chopped up vegetables that make like the soup. And so I think like that it's a, we live in an incredibly, you know, like global and diverse world. And I think that that's been a huge focus. You know, it's been amazing to see Tom and his team really sort of think about that across generations, across geography, across like these cultural conversations and what that really means. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

28:52So I do want to talk a little bit about the white labeling agency stuff at one point, but let's, I would love to get into this issue. So this is the second issue you all have done. It's called gen beta can you talk a bit about this this issue in this cover concept and how it relates back to the first issue because i see the i see the through line but you you tell me um well you know something that really appealed to me looking in the archive like you know kind of the first decade of id was how you know a lot of covers had like you know kate moss or like someone super famous on it a lot of covers had unknowns um but then there was also ones that were almost like more of like a concept or like more of a kind of visual statement and so you know when we started making the magazine we stumbled across this factoid that like you know 2025 is like the first year of people being born who are now like gen beta um and we kind of like took that what a terrible generation name i hope it get changes i know i mean that was kind of part of the joke for us because we were like okay what if actually like being beta is a good thing in the sense that like you know these kids have a chance to kind of like set the record straight on where the world is going and so in a way it was kind of like a thought experiment in sort of like what kind of radical optimism looks like you know we brought together like a bunch of um you know luminaries from a bunch of different fields.

30:32And we basically asked them like, what advice would you give to a baby born in 2025? And so that was kind of like that story, you know, with our cover with the baby on it became kind of like the central sort of like conceptual pillar of the magazine in a way. Especially like in a year where it feels like there's so many things to be pessimistic about. I think thinking about the future in the long term is like a worthwhile endeavor. yeah and it's it can be for carly's baby it can go in in your baby's first book so wow totally but there's there's three of us actually three um on the team who have who are all having beta babies so i'm like i hope for their sake you know we need we need a better future i i hope for for all of our for everybody so one thing i noticed that you all have done well is kind of weave in, I don't know if they're exclusives, but like big gets with different people.

31:37I loved, obviously, Steph Yatka's Sofia Coppola homage that she did recently. And this Jonathan Anderson interview you all have, I don't know if it was the first one he's done or obviously one of the first. I'm also curious about that, like the access element of it you all have good access because you have good connections and people trust you and are inspired by you and all that but like in this new age how important is that sort of access and once you get it like what are you doing with it what do you think you're doing differently when you get these bigger interviews than other outlets are doing you know So it's interesting because I think like, you know, there was a time before I was even in this industry where, you know, the only way you could hear from a famous person was to read what they said in a magazine.

32:34But now, you know, if you really like someone, you could see something they're posting on their Instagram every day, you know. And so I think in a way what we try to do with those types of stories is kind of like zero in on kind of like what we're bringing to the table as far as like hypothesizing about where that person might be in their career. Like, what does this moment mean? Like, you know, and cause I think in a way, part of the reason why people want to be in magazines, even though they have their own platforms is that it, it enters them into like a historical record and kind of like frames time in this very like specific way, you know?

33:18So for example, with Jonathan Anderson, like, you know, him and Steph have been in dialogue, both in interviews and offline for years. And so I think in a way, like, we really wanted to be like, okay, like, we all know the news, but like, what does this mean? And like, what, what does your vision for a kind of like, you know, futuristic, like luxury house look like, you know, and so I think in a way, it's about kind of bringing that extra thing to it. that gets people on board but also like makes it worthwhile yeah what do you think carly as someone who you are often the subject as well so you have all the angles you're now the publisher and and and also you were one of the first kind of personalities to have your own youtube channel i remember that like you you're you've been doing that direct to consumer um interaction for a long time.

34:16Yeah, I think it's interesting because I guess like a value that I certainly care about is that, you know, talent, creators, creatives can come to ID and, you know, it's a safe space. There's this saying of like fans, not critics, like ID has always been a fan, not a critic. And I think that that idea of like, so often, you know, people are going into an interview feeling like there's like a gotcha question waiting for them. And, you know, for us, like, we really want ID to, and ID always has been this sort of celebratory space of creators and creatives and art and the sort of intersection of fashion and music and culture.