Condé Nast is shutting down one of its newest fashion magazines, the 2-year-old quarterly Style.com.
At the time of its launch in the spring of 2012, it was considered a ground-breaking move because it stemmed from a website, reversing the conventional publishing model of building sites out of magazines.

A spokeswoman for Style.com confirmed the news that the magazine portion was suspending publication.
“Since the relaunch in early September, the site continues to exceed growth expectations,” she said. “To continue that momentum, we’ve made the decision to focus 100% of our efforts on our core digital business.”
Dirk Standen, the editor-in-chief of Style.com, was recently made to report to Vogue EIC Anna Wintour, according to a report in WWD on Thursday. And Style.com publisher Matt Rice, who once reported to Condé Nast president Bob Sauerberg, is now reporting to Vogue publisher Susan Plagemann, WWD said.
Standen and Rice could not be reached for comment.
Sources tell Media Ink that it was a decision by Wintour, who is artistic director for all Condé titles, to pull the plug on the magazine because she felt it replicated a lot of what the flagship was doing.
Meanwhile, Condé CEO Charles Townsend’s released his state-of-the-company year-end email and conceded that 2014 was “challenging.”
Figuring out exactly how challenging it was is hard to say, but it was clearly a down year. Sources say only two of the magazines reported ad-page gains: Condé Nast Traveler and Glamour.
Web traffic is apparently surging and digital is approaching 20 percent of overall revenue.
Townsend in his memo boasts, “With our digital audiences growing 46% over the same period last year, we outranked AOL to become the #1 digital lifestyle network among affluent millennial consumers — a milestone achievement.”
He said in October the company “reached 110 million people across its portfolio of assets. “
Still, with print struggling, sources estimate that the company is lagging last year’s revenue by tens of millions of dollars.
“As a private company, we do not disclose proprietary financial information and are pleased by the 28% increase in bookings in the 4th quarter and the strong momentum we have going into the new year,” a spokeswoman said.
Townsend is promising a brighter tomorrow.
“Just in the past few weeks, we have signed a number of upfront advertising commitments from major agencies and clients that are already stoking fourth quarter results, and are sure to fuel growth in 2015.”

One pressing concern to the Condé Nast folks is the appearance of rats in the company’s offices at 1 World Trade Center.
Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour, whose staff has already moved into the 25th and 26th floors, was said to be horrified by the news.

One insider said there were at least two rat sightings and reports that they gnawed on some food left out overnight — a no-no now in the office.
Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, and David Remnick at the New Yorker won’t be moving until late January, so hopefully the problem will have been solved by then.
The problem can’t be blamed on open food in the test kitchen either because Bon Appétit isn’t slated to move in until next month and the cafeteria isn’t expected to open until the end of January at the earliest.
“There were some issues. It’s not a current problem,” said one insider. “There was some extermination over the last few weeks.”

 
Brian Williams, the host of “NBC Nightly News” for the past 10 years, signed a new long-term deal on Monday to remain the host of the Peacock Network’s national news show.
While details of the deal for the 55-year old anchor were not released, it is believed to be a five-year contract at roughly $10 million a year, according to the LA Times.
“Brian is one of the most trusted journalists of our time,” NBC News president Deborah Turness said in a memo to staffers announcing the new deal.
“He has led this organization through every major news event for the last decade, from Hurricane Katrina in his first year in the anchor chair to his exclusive interview with Edward Snowden this year, through elections, wars, natural disasters, tragedies and triumphs,” the memo read.
“In all of those cases he’s taken viewers to the heart of the stories that matter most in a way that’s uniquely his,” Turness added.
The new contract is no surprise — although the williams news show has seen some pressure in recent weeks from ABC’s “World News,” which recently saw David Muir take over from Diane Sawyer.

New Republic owner Chris Hughes pushed the magazine to be more business-friendly, according to a New Yorker account of the spectacular implosion of the liberal institution.
Just after he bought the magazine in 2012, the Facebook founder saw the first issue under his ownership included the cover headline: “Attack of the Crybabies: Why Hedge Fund Honchos Turned Against Obama.”

Ryan Lizza writes that “Hughes stopped the press run and the headline was changed to simply read, ‘Why Hedge Fund Honchos Turned Against Obama.’ ”
Later, during a discussion about Apple’s tax strategy, in which a writer argued that what it was doing was “illegal,” Hughes, 31, objected.
“Apple has acted squarely within the law,” he wrote. “The law itself is f–ked up . . . Companies have an obligation to their shareholders to maximize shareholder value, including through strategic tax ­planning.”
The New Yorker article describes the slow staff revolt under Hughes, who was originally seen as a white knight for the money-losing, ­100-year-old magazine.
Hughes, who roomed with Mark Zuckerberg in college and made an estimated $600 million from Facebook, spent money for staff to travel abroad and wrote his own editorials.
But things started to go south when Hughes’ husband, Sean ­Eldridge, was running for Congress this year in the Hudson Valley. He was widely seen as a carpetbagger, spending $5 million to run in one district, then reversing course and dropping $2 million in another district. He spent $6.3 million running, three times his opponent’s expenditures, and lost the race by 30 points.
“We all liked him; he seemed to like us,” former senior editor Julia Ioffe told The New Yorker. “Everything was going great. Then, in the summer, something snapped.”
Hughes was increasingly concerned with the bottom line at New Republic, and insisted the magazine became more digital-focused.
In October, Hughes hired Guy Vidra of Yahoo! as CEO. Together, Vidra and Hughes began talking to editors and writers in the vague tech-lingo of getting more clicks and pushing innovation.
“Sorry to say, we’ve got to break s–t and embrace being uncomfortable sometimes,” The New Yorker quoted Vidra as telling baffled staff.
With Hughes and Vidra aiming for a digital revolution, top editorial staff, particularly editor Franklin Foer, sensed they were headed for the ax, while Hughes continued to deny any intentions to fire Foer.
That turned out to be a big fib in order to save face while the magazine prepared for its glitzy 100th-anniversary bash.
“Chris was waiting for the gala to end,” a former staffer told The New Yorker. “It reminds me of ‘The Godfather: Part II’: ‘I don’t want anything to happen to him while my mother is alive.’ ”
Foer learned that former Gawker editor Gabriel Snyder would replace him as editor, and two-thirds of the New Republic’s editors and writers walked out.
Despite a serious loss of staff, Hughes and Vidra are moving ahead with plans to reduce the print product from 20 issues to 10 a year and uproot The New New Republic — a “vertically integrated digital-media company” — from Washington, DC, to New York.
Outcry among liberals, believing that Hughes and Eldridge have betrayed the cause, is fierce. A headline last week in The Daily Beast said: “America’s Worst Gay Power Couple.”

With its iconic architecture and gentile vibe, Savannah, Ga., might seem like an odd place for the rise of an “indie” men’s skin-care and lifestyle brand like Prospector Co. But this historic town, the backdrop for the novel and film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” is one of the most innovative and cosmopolitan in the South.

“All-Purpose Dirt,” $32 at prospectorco.comPhoto: Handout

“Savannah is the kind of place that allows creative people to do creative things,” says Prospector founder Kyle Hinton. “The unique nature of this town acts as a kind of incubator for small companies like our own.”
Founded in 2010, Prospector offers a range of grooming, accessories and fragrance products for men — and now women. Initially, the company became a “cult” favorite of hirsute hipster types who swooned over Prospector’s unique shaving products — particularly its signature Burroughs Beard Oil. Woodsy and masculine, the Beard Oil emerged as an ideal splash-on for the type of image conscious crowd then emerging from Williamsburg and the Los Angeles enclave of Los Feliz.

“Burroughs Beard
Oil,” $18 at prospectorco.com

That’s also the exact kind of man increasingly found in Savannah itself thanks to the creative student body at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). The thousands of young SCAD men coursing through Savannah, Hinton explains, has allowed Prospector to be more “edgy” with their product development, display and design — all evident in Prospector’s light-filled flagship on the city’s iconic fashion boulevard, West Broughton Street. After years of carefully cultivating their brand, Prospector is wellpositioned for national expansion.

“Gleaners Facial Scrub,” $24 at prospectorco.com

Prospector arrives in New York this month, at Barneys’ Madison Avenue flagship. Of course, Burroughs Beard Oil will be front and center — but so will additional key Prospector products, including its All-Purpose Dirt (a great cleanser), K.C. Atwood Aftershave Splash, Wormwood Absinthium Cream and a nice range of shaving brushes and accessories. Some items will also be available at select J.Crew outposts in time for holiday shopping.
With the brand still new to New York, it’s a bit early to see how Gotham guys will respond. But grooming insiders are cautiously confident Prospector can stand out among the sea of skincare competitors.
Men’s grooming journalist and expert Matt Bell has had the brand on his radar since its start. “Prospector has been a favorite among the in-the-know for a while now,” says Bell, who swears by the brand’s hand creams. Bringing Prospector to NYC, he adds, shows that “Barneys is trying to drop the metrosexual thing and associate with a modern, polished-but-rugged masculinity.”

As a jacked-up, buzz-cut cage fighter with sex scenes galore, you’d never recognize Nick Jonas from his celibate, scrawny boy-band days.
Truth is, Nick, the star of DirecTV’s brutal drama “Kingdom,” is still trying to grasp the potency of his new ripped bod himself.

“I have been trained very well by some excellent fighters, so if anything ever went down I’d be worried that I would use the training and then get in trouble,” admits a baby-faced Nick, who says he’s never been in a real-life fight before.
Lucky for the 22-year-old, his bodyguard is just outside.

And with the blink of an eye, the royals are gone. But before jetting out of NYC, Kate Middleton dazzled in a demure Jenny Packham gown. Elsewhere, J.Crew has tapped a 4-year-old to design an upcoming children’s collection.

- It looks like Kate Middleton saved her finest look for last. The Duchess of Cambridge made a grand entrance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Tuesday night in a midnight blue Jenny Packham gown. What’s old is definitely new again, as the mom-to-be has recycled the ensemble twice!
- Remember mini me fashionista Mayhem? Of course you do — and so does Jenna Lyons, who has tapped the tot to design a kids collection for J.Crew.
- John Galliano is returning to the runway. The controversial designer will present his debut collection for Maison Martin Margiela in London on Jan. 12.
- SJP is making a splash in the Middle East. The “Sex and the City” star is taking her shoe line global, and has created an exclusive collection for her Dubai debut.
- Curious to taste test Zac Posen’s spiced holiday cookies? Now you can. Posen and six of his designer peers share their favorite recipes to try out this season. Happy eating!
- The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show isn’t all glitz and glam. Go behind the scenes of the annual event with blond bombshell and super-Angel Candice Swanepoel.