About Fashion

Fashion

FASHION is a Canadian fashion magazine published by St. Joseph Communications in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1977, it covers international, national, and local fashion, beauty trends, and news, with satellite offices in Vancouver and Montreal. It publishes seven issues a year and reports a total readership of 800,000 (Vividata Fall 2022). Its website is fashionmagazine.com.

Overview

FASHION is Canada's long-running national fashion title, publishing covers featuring international stars — Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Zendaya, Hailey Bieber, Sydney Sweeney, Sadie Sink, and Olivia Culpo among them — alongside coverage of Canadian designers. Its first editor-in-chief was John MacKay, previously responsible for Toronto Life's men's fashion supplements; the current editor-in-chief is Bernadette Morra, who spent 23 years at the Toronto Star as a fashion writer and then fashion editor before joining FASHION in 2009.

In February 2020 the magazine repositioned from a traditional women's magazine to a brand for all ages, sizes, genders, ethnicities, and orientations, adding the tagline #UnapologeticallyOurselves to its mission statement in 2022.

History

Founded in 1977, FASHION grew into Canada's flagship fashion magazine under St. Joseph Media. Its website launched in the summer of 2000, expanding the brand's runway, street-style, and beauty coverage online, with later sub-brands including The Drop (product releases) and Texture Talk (devoted to hair of all curl types).

A significant chapter in the brand's recent history involves its former rival Flare. Created by Maclean-Hunter in 1979 as a rebranding of Miss Chatelaine, Flare called itself "Canada's Fashion magazine" and was by 2011 the top-selling fashion magazine in Canada. Its print edition ended in 2016; it continued online, and in the 2019 Rogers–St. Joseph deal it moved to St. Joseph Communications. In July 2021, content from flare.com migrated to FASHION's website as a pillar; in February 2023 the Flare brand was dissolved and its content absorbed into FASHION's Culture section — consolidating Canada's two historic fashion titles under one brand.

FASHION has also built a live-events presence: in June 2022 it held the first annual Cake Mix, an invitation-only party kicking off Pride month in Toronto.

Content

The magazine covers runway news, street style, fashion and beauty trends, and Canadian designers, in print and across its website's verticals. Its editorial stance since 2020 emphasizes inclusivity across age, size, gender, ethnicity, and orientation. The absorbed Flare content pillar added culture coverage to the mix.

Coverage & Audience

FASHION serves a national audience of fashion and beauty consumers, reporting total readership of 800,000. Based in Toronto with satellite offices in Vancouver and Montreal, it reaches readers in print (seven issues a year) and online. Its audience spans the fashion-engaged public, with a historically significant male readership that once supported a dedicated FASHION Men's style special distributed through national newspapers.

Ownership

FASHION is published by St. Joseph Communications (St. Joseph Media), the Toronto-based publisher whose magazine division also includes Toronto Life, Maclean's, Chatelaine, Today's Parent, Hello! Canada, and Weddingbells, among others.

Born from Toronto Life

FASHION's origin is a footnote that became a flagship. In 1977, Toronto Life — the city magazine — was publishing fashion supplements, and that year the supplements were spun off as their own brand: Toronto Life Fashion. The "Toronto Life" was slowly dropped from the title, and the magazine grew into a national fashion title under St. Joseph Media. Its first editor-in-chief was John MacKay, previously responsible for Toronto Life's men's fashion supplements — a lineage that explains the magazine's historically significant male readership and the FASHION Men's style special once distributed through national newspapers.

The website launched in the summer of 2000, extending runway, street-style and beauty coverage online, and the brand later added sub-brands including The Drop (product releases) and Texture Talk (devoted to hair of all curl types).

The 2019 Deal That Remade Canadian Magazine Publishing

On March 20, 2019, Rogers Media announced it was selling its magazine division to St. Joseph Communications — seven consumer print and digital brands: Maclean's, Chatelaine (English and French), Today's Parent, Hello! Canada, and the digital-only Flare and Canadian Business, plus Rogers' custom-content business. All 126 Rogers magazine-division staff were offered positions at St. Joseph, and the deal closed the following month.

The transaction ended Rogers' presence in publishing — the company that had become Canada's biggest magazine publisher by far after buying the Maclean-Hunter empire in 1994 was now officially out, focusing on TV, radio and web. For St. Joseph it was transformative: the company became the largest magazine publisher in Canada and the country's largest integrated publisher-printer, moving the acquired titles' printing to its Concord plant. Executive chairman and CEO Tony Gagliano welcomed the brands' "diverse and loyal audiences and advertisers," and the two companies promised a smooth change of ownership with no disruption to subscribers. FASHION was suddenly the fashion anchor of the biggest magazine stable in the country.

Flare: The Rival That Became a Pillar

The most storied of the acquired brands was Flare — and its story is now FASHION's story. Flare began in 1964 as Miss Chatelaine, a Chatelaine spin-off for teenage girls covering school fashions, dating and etiquette. In 1979 Maclean-Hunter management assigned Donna Scott to wind down Teen Generation and Miss Chatelaine and create something new: Scott's answer was Flare, aimed at young career women who until then had only American fashion magazines to read. Under first editor Keitha Maclean it became, in the industry's telling, Canada's first successful fashion magazine.

Scott's own trajectory matched the title's ambition: she went on to chair the Canada Council for the Arts and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1994. Later editors included Shelley Black, Bonnie Fuller, Suzanne Boyd and Lisa Tant. Flare celebrated its 30th anniversary in November 2009 with a reception at the Royal Ontario Museum, and by 2011 it was the top-selling fashion magazine in Canada. The print edition ended in 2016 and the title continued online; it moved to St. Joseph in the 2019 Rogers deal, became a sub-brand of FASHION in July 2021 with flare.com content migrating as a pillar of the FASHION website, and in February 2023 the Flare brand was dissolved and its content absorbed into FASHION's Culture section. Two historic rivals, one brand.

The Brand Today

Since February 2020 the magazine has positioned itself as a fashion and beauty brand for all ages, sizes, genders, ethnicities and orientations — adding the tagline #UnapologeticallyOurselves to its mission statement in 2022 — and the absorbed Flare content brought a stronger culture voice, from political explainers to entertainment coverage. The live-events presence has grown with it: in June 2022 the brand held the first annual Cake Mix, an invitation-only party kicking off Pride month in Toronto.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website at fashionmagazine.com covers runway news, street style, trends, and Canadian designers, hosting the former Flare content as its Culture pillar. The brand maintains an active social media presence and stages events such as the annual Cake Mix Pride kickoff. Its history is documented in its Wikipedia entry and in publishing-industry coverage from Masthead Online and Marketing Magazine.

The Flare archive now living inside the site gives fashionmagazine.com an unusual depth: four decades of a rival title's covers, interviews and cultural commentary, folded into the Culture vertical — a consolidation no other Canadian fashion brand can offer.