Started in early 2012 by Fraquoh and Franchomme, Attire Club is a platform aiming at the sharp modern man – the “elegantologist,” as they like to call him – with an elevated fashion sense looking for a continuous style development. From complete style guides and fashion inspiration to cultural insights, Attire Club offers practical “you can do it, here’s how” articles promising to make men look and feel at their best. Aside from editing their website, the duo has recently jumped into the digital magazine world, launching InCompany by Attire Club, a dynamic, entertaining magazine that covers a range of interests of modern men: from tips on developing your style to clothes made from beer and insights on photography, business and politics, InCompany celebrates spectacular living. We sat down with the duo to discuss attracting your target audience, monetizing your website and future plans.
Who is behind Attire Club? What is your background and how did you choose to start your website?
Attire Club appeared from the wish to make the world a more elegant place and from the passion for aesthetics. To do this, we created a new concept that was unique: to offer a complete experience that anyone, from any background, can enjoy and benefit from.
How do you come up with new content and try to maintain your readers’ interest?
Attire Club is dedicated to offering a 360 degrees experience, so many topics for articles are based on things men should know about fashion and style, such as how to match your tie to your shirt and so on. Of course, some of the articles are more general and others are more targeted on a detail. The way we come up with new articles is either by asking ourselves what is something many men should be doing but they don’t, or what questions might a man who knows a lot about style would have about a certain topic.
Then, we always look into what’s new in the fashion world, both in terms of design and technology, so keeping up with the fashion world is a great source of inspiration when it comes to content.
Thirdly, we publish cultural insights, which are usually inspired by what is currently happening in the global culture. We love debating sensitive subjects that tackle the relation between our clothes and our psyche.
Where do you look to document trends? Which have been the most surprising trends in menswear the last couple of years?
The process of discovering trends is rather layered. First of all, there are the runways, where you always see reoccurring elements. Secondly, it’s what you see in pop culture, which is basically the way in which the public discourse interprets these trends. And thirdly, there are the magazines and stores where you see what from the runways has made it into people’s lives.
This being said, it also needs to be noted that the fashion world is so wide these days that you can find almost anything anytime. As a concrete example, we were pretty there were a lot of big, boxy designs on the runways within the last years, but they were been adopted only by a segment of the population.
What prompted your idea to launch the T-shirt shop?
The T-shirt shop came along soon after we launched the website. We wanted to offer a quick and easy way for people to own something that comes from us, which is why we have created a series of original designs that we placed on simple v-neck t-shirts.
The reason why we chose v-neck t-shirts is because they are dressier and can be worn with a blazer too. Moreover, the designs are placed on the upper half of the t-shirt, so that they are visible even if you wear them with a blazer.
How did it feel putting together an issue as opposed to the editorial calendar for your blog? What did you have to do differently? What was the hardest part?
Publishing a magazine is very different from publishing on a blog. While it is harder, as it involves more knowledge and expertise, it allows you to be more creative. On the web, one needs to always define and structure information in a dictionary-like way, to make the experience easier to navigate even for someone who’s never visited your website before.
With the magazine, you can use metaphors, you need to consider the fact that people don’t always start with the beginning and you need to remember that, as the great Diana Vreeland said, “the eye has to travel”.
Is it all you or do you operate within a team?
As said before, Attire Club is the result of a small team’s effort. We have someone creating and establishing new opportunities and someone in charge of the creative direction of our brand. Technical support is also sometimes needed, but, as a tip for bloggers, it’s always best to be able to be in control yourself.
What are your first impressions from the digital publishing so far? Is transitioning to print in your future plans?
Attire Club is and will remain a digital publication. However, with our magazine, InCompany, we transitioned to the print world, as the magazine is available both in print and digitally. While we believe that the focus will remain on online publishing, we love to create print publications such as magazines or books that have a collector’s value. For example, with our magazine, we wanted it to be more of a concept journal that documents many of the people we like in the fashion world and our interests.
How do you monetize?
We have partnered up with an advertising agency and we currently have a few ad spots in our sidebar. This way, the ads don’t interfere with the content of our articles, and our readers can discover new brands or get discounts by clicking on the ads.
The reason why we partnered up with an agency is because it is very important to us to display only content that is relevant. We don’t want to display ads to any advertiser.
What is your view on the men’s magazines industry?
While we do love our Esquire and GQs, we feel that there’s a lot of conformity and similarity between most men’s magazines. Men are more diverse than that, and so should the magazines be as well.
What is next for Attire Club?
There are a few things on which we are currently working on at the moment. One of these is the first summer issue of our magazine. We have some great content that we can’t wait to share with our readers!
Also, we are working on developing our online concept store, LeVolny. What we are doing is collecting products from brands we trust and share them in the store. If people wish to purchase them, they can click a link and get directed to the brand’s shop.
Images © Attire Club
www.attireclub.org
**You can buy the digital version of In Company with Attire Club here and the print version here.
