Stuff’s fashion publication opts for independence over closure

As New Zealand media outlets close left right and centre, the founders of Stuff’s fashion title Ensemble have bucked that trend and taken back ownership instead of letting it fold.
Media veterans Rebecca Wadey and Zoe Walker Ahwa founded Ensemble Magazine at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, selling the title to Stuff a year later.
Three years down the road, the duo have purchased the online magazine back from Stuff and are preparing to once again navigate a gloomy and advertising-starved media sector.
Before setting up Ensemble, Walker Ahwa had just lost her job as editor of Fashion Quarterly and Simply You in the collapse of Bauer Media, “I was spending a lot of unemployed lockdown time thinking about the state of fashion and lifestyle ‘women’s interest’ media in Aotearoa – and feeling quite bleak about it.”
She said those titles carried a lot of baggage and were all about glamour and aspiration, and that fashion and lifestyle media had become too brand and public relations focused, with straight republishing of press releases commonplace.
“I knew there was something missing in the market: a digital first platform that wasn’t afraid to have an opinion, that valued really good writing and journalism as much as it did beautiful imagery, that embraced real life and imperfection, that spoke to not at its audience.”
As a fan of Walker Ahwa’s work, “in my mind the best women’s lifestyle editor Aotearoa has” Wadey saw an opportunity in her existential crisis, and went into business with her.
“I really disliked most ‘women’s’ media which tends to come from a place of judgment/making people feel less than/like they need fixing, and I knew if anyone had the talent to rethink that it was Zoe.”
The duo ran the online magazine for a year before selling it into the Stuff stable in 2021.
Wadey said they sold the publication to Stuff for a salary and resources “We self-funded for that first year and put everything the business back into paying contributors so we could be a true ‘ensemble’. We desperately needed an income to survive.”
Walker Ahwa said due to their connections Ensemble had grown quickly, but not sustainably. It quickly reached a point where it needed to scale, audience-wise and commercially, and we couldn’t do it, just the two of us.”
She said people thought Ensemble was far more resourced than it was and hoped that Stuff would be able to support it with marketing, data and the more commercial side of operations it needed to grow.
Stuff did help the company grow its audience and put Walker Ahwa and Wadey in the position to hire and mentor writers.
Fast forward three years and Stuff’s ongoing restructures saw it cut Ensemble as a publication.
Unwilling to let their creation die, Walker Ahwa and Wadey bought Ensemble back for the same amount they sold it for – the exact number is being kept under wraps.
Wadey said they were grateful for the opportunity to keep it going, “We know times are really hard out there, but that’s why we think it’s more important than ever for people to have media outlets which can be both agitative and escapist.”
Ensemble Magazine was born of media industry chaos in the wake of the Bauer closure back in 2020, and is entering this next stage of life in a period of greater media turmoil.
The fashion industry, on which fashion and lifestyle media industry is partially reliant, is also navigating a rough patch – evidenced by the closure of local fashion stalwart Kate Sylvester and the postponement of New Zealand Fashion Week.
Wadey said there was an obvious impact on fashion media, particularly as advertisers look for ‘safer’ homes for their shrinking budgets, “I hate this, it’s definitely a thing that happens when times are tough; brands gravitate towards bland/safe titles that don’t really offer anything of value to a reader.”
She said it was almost impossible to believe that the state of the media industry is worse now than it was when Ensemble began.
“Shrinking ad revenue and money being channelled to Google, Meta and TikTok are creating the perfect storm. Honestly, I am scared for the industry.”
Walker Ahwa said Ensemble was part of a wave of new indie media startups at the time, with a hunger for new things and platforms.
“I’m not sure that hunger for newness is as strong these days; I do worry that the media is reverting to the status quo or the bare basics simply because they have to survive,” she said.
“I am really interested in the idea of niche, super engaged audiences willing to pay for content/newsletters/access; I think that’s where the future for lifestyle and fashion is, in particular.”
The duo want to explore moving more towards a subscription or membership content model instead of relying so heavily on advertising revenues, but acknowledge there is a scale issue related to that.
The immediate strategy?
“A holiday,” Wadey said, “We know we don’t have the answers. We are exhausted and burnt out and we are going to sit with it over a lovely summer break.”
The duo say they are going to take it one day at a time, “Our content will absolutely evolve depending on where we take Ensemble under our independent ownership,” Walker Ahwa said.
“We will have less/no budget for contributors, so there will probably be more from Rebecca and I. It will also be a matter of less is more, for the time being: quality not quantity.”