"Lucky" Magazine's Eva Chen on the Launch of LuckyShops—& Fuzzy iPhone Cases
Photo: Getty Images
Today, Lucky magazine has risen out of the ashes that is print magazines and seized a digital crown. With this morning’s launch of LuckyShops, the shopping magazine’s new digital home, the former Conde Nast brand is forging ahead with its new identity, helmed by Eva Chen, the magazine’s beloved editor-in chief.
Chen, who has held the title since June 2013, was tasked with giving the publication a makeover, after being brought in as a consultant by Conde Nast’s then newly appointed artistic director, Anna Wintour. A year later, in August of 2014, the company announced that it was merging the magazine with web retailer BeachMint, creating a new entity known as Lucky Group. Chen would keep her title of editor-in-chief of the magazine, as well as Chief Creative Officer. Since the announcement, the fashion world at large has been wondering what exactly, would a merger between a magazine and an e-commerce look like? Today, we got the answer. We talked to Chen about the launch, her favorite products, and what’s next for the future of magazines.
Yahoo Style: This is kind of like your second baby in three months. What’s that like?!
Eva Chen: I feel like I’ve had two children in the last few weeks! An actual child, and LuckyShops. The weird thing about my life is that it’s very “all or nothing,” and when it rains it pours. I was pregnant around the time we decided to launch e-commerce, as all the ideas started solidifying, I felt like I was more creative, and had more head-space than ever to deal with all these decisions. Maybe it was just the hormones or just the additional blood in my system, but I was just so excited.
I also had a great support system with the team, everyone was so gung-ho about this new idea and it made it manageable. The web team was really, really phenomenal as well. It’s been an easier process that it should’ve been, probably because of the strength of the team.
YS: What do you think this means for the future of magazines?
EC: I truly believe this will be a benchmark, a new way of thinking for many magazines. Right now, every magazine has e-commerce in some way, they have affiliate links on their websites or they link out to another website, but every magazine is doing some kind of e-commerce transaction. Since Kim France launched the magazine in 2000, Lucky has always been the magazine about shopping, and I really applaud her vision. When it launched, I would wait every month for the new issue—I wanted to know what to go out and buy in stores—and now we have closed that loop; it’s completely organic. I absolutely could see this as being the standard. Every woman I know these days has like 56 jobs, with their family, or a child, or side projects, everyone is busy, and it’s just great to make it easier. For the people who love Lucky—and love what it represents—they can just get it all in one place. And I think that kind of ease and that kind of integration, is something other magazines will be looking at.
YS: Do you think this will change the way you approach the editorial content?
EC: Lucky has always thought about editorial, and the images in the magazine, from a more shoppable perspective. There are magazines that will shoot a handbag floating in the water, with a model covered in seaweed, you know, something really artistic. And I love those magazines, and I buy them and am inspired by them, but at Lucky the product has always been front and center, we’ve always wanted our readers to look at an image and immediately think “the jeans she’s wearing, I want them,” and since that has been the focus for the past 15 years, it’s not going to change.
YS: Who do you see as your competition? Is it websites like Net-a-Porter who have launched their own publication, or do you see yourself in a category of your own?
EC: It’s funny because a lot of people have asked that. I’ve been doing all the market appointments and working the merchandising along with an amazing team based in Los Angeles, and that question keeps coming up. I love Net-a-Porter and I love Shopbop, I shop those sites, I have so much respect for Natalie Massenet (Net-a-Porter founder) and if I got a little black box from Net-a-Porter every day, I would be a very happy girl. Fundamentally, our customers are very different. The Net-a-Porter customer is the most elegant woman alive. Our girl is a street style girl, she’s downtown, she’s living on Instagram, shopping on Instagram—which is something I totally do, I stalk my friends’ style then end up buying half the things they own!—but I think in a way our competition is everyone and no one. We have so much content on our site and people were expecting it to look more like an e-commerce store, but the content is there, it’s truly a fusion of the two. I think that’s why we are getting such a great response from the market, because we are unlike anything else out there.
YS: How do you hope that readers will interact with it?
EC: I want people to feel like it is the best of both worlds. You click on an article about Kylie and Kendall Jenner’s new Topshop collection, and then you keep clicking, clicking, and clicking on “related articles” links until you eventually find yourself on a page with a really cool pair of leather loafers and you’re like, “I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I really want these,” and you complete the purchase there.
YS: What are your favorite products on the website right now?
EC: My favorite product are these phone cases by Keora Keora that look like poodles and kittens. They are literally made of stuffed animal material, and they’re ridiculous. They’re ridiculously cute and I feel like I need one right now. There’s a ring from Gabriela Artigas, a pearl ring that’s very modern, and not very expensive that I love.
We have so many designers. We’ve had a lot of delays because of the weather, and some of the designers I have been excited to launch with, including Mansur Gavriel and Marc by Marc, have gotten delayed. We are still about promoting new designers, young designers. You know, Lucky was one of the first to write about Phillip Lim, Alexander Wang, Loeffler Randall, and we are still about discovery. We have really good brands from Korea; I think it is the new home for fast fashion. We have lots of quirky styles coming, brands that no one has heard of. Now we are so excited to be able to spotlight and support these designers in a whole new way. With a lot of these young designers, when you place a purchase order like that, you are really supporting their trade and supporting their vision, and helping them spread their wings a little. It feels really good to be able to approach fashion from that perspective too, in addition to being able to write about it. We have an exclusive collaboration with Public School coming in a few weeks, and we’re really excited about that.
I can keep listing things because literally every single item on the site is something that I have put a check mark, or a heart, or a smiley face next to. My team and I have curated the site based on our personal wishlist. There’s no, “Oh, we have to carry this,” or, “Oh, we should carry this,” we just simply want to carry it.
YS: And lastly, will we be seeing any baby clothes popping up on the website soon?
EC: (Laughs) You know, I can’t say. I can’t say yet. But obviously that’s something I am dealing with everyday. “Why does the baby need to wear shoes? She can’t even walk, but she looks so cute!” But I mean, never say never! You’ll probably see some more weird and quirky tech accessories, we’re leaning in that direction, and then babies further down the line, maybe.
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