Paris — French daily Le Monde expands its lifestyle reach with the launch of its first physical event inspired by the weekend magazine M and its spin-off Le Gou de M. I am.
Designers Simon Porte Jacquemus, Mathieu Blazy, Marine Serres, Julien Dossena and Ravi will be at the Le Gou de Hème festival, which takes place this weekend at the École Duperre Fashion and Applied Arts School in Paris.・There will be talks by Keyrouz, Pierre Hardy, and other creators from Paris. He is active in various fields with the theme of sustainability.
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Marie-Pierre Lannelong, deputy editor of Le Monde and Le Magazine du Monde, has worked hard since the weekly magazine was founded 13 years ago with the mission of covering news and lifestyle. , said it was the first time she and her team met with readers.
“With this event, we are trying to provide a live M experience. The purpose is to grow the M brand,” she explained. “Holding it at a school allows you to run the event like a table of contents for a magazine. There's a short format and a long format, so it's like a 3D magazine.”
The two-day festival is named after Le Goût de M, which started out as a podcast, and from 2022 will have a dedicated corner on Le Monde's homepage. The paper's supplements are published three times a year and feature his four different covers dedicated to fashion, design, food, and travel.
Lannelong, who started his career at Elle magazine, believes that when M was first published, there was a strong bias at the news station against fashion reporting, especially given Le Monde's reputation as the newspaper of choice for France's leftist intellectual elite. Told.
With the growth of the luxury goods industry, M Magazine has experienced steady growth in print and online, driven by an explosion of interest in lifestyle topics among young and female readers.
It currently has 1.6 million weekly readers and will have a circulation of about 490,000 by the second half of 2023, according to the Alliance for Print Media Data (ACPM). Le Monde and the magazine have a total of 607,000 subscribers.
“It works because we cover these stories with the same journalistic integrity with which we report the news. Our readers find Le Monde a trusted source for lifestyle topics and a quality… We're starting to think that it's guaranteed. Another reason it works is because people are looking for light relief, and that's something we've seen very clearly since COVID-19. That’s what happened,” she said.
“We can talk about fashion, food and travel while being conscious of terrifying world events, from war to the rise of the far right to climate change. It's not always easy to be on a fashion cover in those circumstances. “No, but I feel more comfortable doing it now because people are asking for it. Le Monde has evolved a lot,” she added.
Elizabeth Cialdella, managing director of Groupe Le Monde's M Publicité, reported that M Magazine's advertising revenue increased by 18% in 2023 compared to 2019.
“The company's success depends on its loyal brand base, which represents 60 percent of its portfolio, and its ability to attract new advertisers drawn by its exclusive readership and originality of editorial content,” she said. .
2,000 people are expected to attend the event, which has the theme of “Second Life, Repair, and Elevation.'' Serres will lead a workshop on upcycling, while Bottega Veneta's Blazee will talk about combining craftsmanship and innovation. Dossena, director of Rabanne's creative girlfriend, talks with director and actress Geraldine Nakash.
A few lucky participants will have their portraits taken by Brigitte Lacombe and Malick Bodian, and the experts will demonstrate weaving, embroidery and carving.
Partners for this event include Nespresso, which is launching compostable coffee capsules. Refashion is an environmental organization recognized by the French authorities to cover the textile industry's legal obligations to manage waste in a sustainable manner. Other brands include resale platform Leboncoin and his Diptyque, which recently launched its first refillable candle.
Ranelong said the event was designed to reflect M's editorial approach at a time when the lines between lifestyle journalists and influencers are becoming increasingly blurred. “It's less about celebrity and more about authenticity and items that stand the test of time,” she said.
She noted that powerful media brands are increasingly diversifying into new areas, including apparel, and noted that the festival is M.
“If you're a big, powerful media brand today, you need to develop your brand and potentially find other sources of income,” she said. “So the idea is to grow our brand and expand our reach. That's why we want to have a strong editorial bent so that speakers and audiences alike really feel that it's an M experience. is important.”
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