Media Talk: Essential Style out of fashion at SMH

Media Talk: Essential Style out of fashion

It seems Fairfax is systematically sucking out all the fashion supplements GWAS has held so dearly! Following February's Personal Shopper/A2 Culture & Life demise, resulting in The Saturday Age's swift chop from the weekend's newspaper crop (harsh, I know), is news that The Sydney Morning Herald's Thursday edition will no longer feature the 12-16 page Essential Style supplement edited by Angie Kelly.

Instead, Sydney readers with an interest in fashion will be presented with two pages of fashion-intense coverage (trends, news, personalities) under a Style banner each Thursday (starting tomorrow), which suggests SMH is getting serious about fashion (and potential stylish link-bait online). The new section will be edited by Georgina Safe, who was fashion editor at The Australian for six years before joining Fairfax on Monday.

Sydney Morning Herald editor Amanda Wilson said: "Georgina is a terrific advocate for Australian fashion and one of the most highly regarded journalists in this area. I am confident our readers will find much to inspire them in the new fashion section."

Safe, who has also covered the Arts beat in Melbourne and written for Vogue Australia, replaces former SMH fashion editor Kellie Hush, who has taken the helm at Grazia. No word on where Angie Kelly, who has served at Fairfax for 11 years, including a stint as Special Reports Editor for The Sun-Herald, has moved to within Fairfax.

Recently incorporating Maggie Alderson's 'The Rules' column, which will now move to the 'S' entertainment section of The Sun-Herald (and M magazine within The Sunday Age), Essential Style was also home to the 'Fashion Police' column, which GWAS has been diligently cropping from SMH since the early 2000s (though, notably, not so much since the dawn of the fashion blog, which is telling).

Most recently edited by Natasha Silver-Jelly, Fashion Police – which may yet turn up in the new Style section – was once found in the Good Living food and lifestyle section (out Tuesdays) and has been edited by all the big names, from Maggie Alderson herself to Patty Huntington (now at Frockwriter), Jacqueline Lunn (who has a new book out titled Under the Influence), Kirsten Galliott (editor of the(sydney)magazine) and Anthea Loucas (editor of Australian Gourmet Traveller). An A-list alumni if ever there was one.

The design, homewares and retail elements that were a part of Essential Style will move to the paper's Saturday supplement Spectrum, where it will continue to be overseen by the publication's Sydney shopping and design expert Melissa Penfold. Hopefully the 'My Village' and 'My Wardrobe 101' pages will be reincarnated within Spectrum, which currently houses book, film, culture and arts content, too.

See also:
Glossy Talk: Kellie Hush for Grazia
Media Talk: The Personal Shopper comes a cropper in Age makeover as fashion gets a Fairfax dressing down
Media Talk: Maggie Alderson to pen final Style Notes for Good Weekend

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