Magazines: how do they work?

Duck, duck, goose

This New York Times article on “the revenge of the niche fashion magazine” was published yesterday and I have some questions. I’ve already ranted to my friends about it, but as someone whose writing/portrait is featured in three out of the ten issues mentioned (and I do mean the issues—the ratio would be smaller if counting whole print runs) I’m perhaps an accidental expert on the topic, if we can call it that, of this so-called resurgence.

But, what is being resurged? And when, exactly, did this era start (if, as the writer proposes, it was around 2010, with the Gentlewoman, why are we talking about it now?)? More importantly, and especially during a time of economic panic, how are any of these publications financially surviving? “We are in the black,” says the founder of Family Style, which started in 2023. No other EICs are quoted as saying this, and I suspect they weren’t asked.