EXCLUSIVE: South China Morning Post Unveils Revamped Luxury Supplement
NEW STYLE: Goodbye Style, hello Style by SCMP.
The high-end lifestyle supplement of the Hong Kong-based English-language daily newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) will relaunch on Friday with a new outlook.
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“My aim is to make [Style by SCMP] global but relevant to our readers,” said Style by SCMP’s newly minted chief editor Vincenzo La Torre, who previously served as the newspaper’s fashion editor since 2017, also working on its Post weekend supplement and the previous Styles edition.
He claimed that “if there is a publication in Asia that can put out [a supplement] that would hold its own against [The Financial Times’] How to Spend It and T Magazine, it would be SCMP,” owing to its position as a regional newspaper of record that was founded in 1903.
Describing the new version as a “full relaunch” in keeping with Hong Kong’s post-pandemic reopening, La Torre said he wanted to “highlight people who are global and also very Asian.”
“I need to cater to our local readers but not make [the supplement] provincial,” continued the editor, who pointed out that publishing in English “already makes [the newspaper and its supplements] niche compared to Chinese-language publications.”
With most of its English-language competition focusing on society topics, Style by SCMP will cover the luxury industry from a consumer but also a business perspective.
“Our readers know [brands] but for me, introducing them to the people behind doesn’t just mean the designers but also the chief executive officers because that gives a better overview of what a brand is,” he continued.
And putting in the supplement “cool personalities from the [Asian] region, because it’s not just about Hong Kong,” an international metropolis but a relatively small territory, will also help broaden its readership — currently skewing male and 40-and-up in age — and reach. Its online strategy, in particular, will encompass the whole Southeast Asia region.
For the 98-page April issue, he interviewed Wesley Ng, cofounder and chief executive officer of tech accessories brand Casetify, in his Crosby Studios-designed office; and for May, it will be the turn of Wil Fang, the U.S.-born and raised founder of luxury treats company Cookie Department, which La Torre described as “the Supreme of cookies.”
Other content pillars will include jewelry, watches, travel, wellness — a topic that hadn’t really been broached for the publication — but also the key issue of “responsible luxury,” rather than sustainability.
“Just telling people you need to buy less stuff is not the right approach. I want to educate them [by showcasing] what I mean by ‘buy less but better’ or ‘the right product,’” he continued.
If the first cover by Canadian photographer Mike Ruiz features French model Jean Baptiste Paquini dressed in a Versace top and wearing Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry feels a surprising choice for an Asia-based publication, it’s a deliberately disruptive choice to mark this new era, according to La Torre.
Celebrities are not off the table but La Torre is intent on putting on the supplement’s cover a variety reflecting a readership that includes the Hong Kong born and raised as well as expatriates from around the world, including those of Chinese descent.
South China Morning Post’s chief operating officer Kevin Huang said the newspaper is “dedicated to nurturing communities that bring together brands and influencers who are united by their pursuit of knowledge, well-being, betterment and fulfillment.”
Style by SCMP will have 10 print issues a year, with double issues for July-August and January-February, available bundled with a Friday edition of the newspaper or distributed through luxury hotels, spas and airport lounges.
The daily paid circulation of the Alibaba-owned newspaper is on average 105,347, according to the Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulation, with a print readership of 350,000 for its daily and Sunday Morning Post editions, from a Nielsen Media Index report for the fourth quarter of 2020.
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