Fairchild Fashion Media Acquires NowManifest
Talk about blogger’s big break!
Fairchild Fashion Media, the Condé Nast division that oversees such fashion media powerhouses as Women’s Wear Daily and Style.com, has acquired Fashion Networks International LLC, the parent company of blog network NowManifest. Founded in 2011 by Christian Remröd and Elin Kling, NowManifest ties together Kling’s Style by Kling blog with Rumi Neely’s Fashion Toast, Bryan Grey Yambao’s BryanBoy, Derek Blasberg’s Mr. Blasberg, and Anna Dello Russo’s blog, among others.
“We are thrilled to welcome Christian Remröd and Fashion Networks International to Fairchild Fashion Media,” said Fairchild Fashion Media president and CEO Gina Sanders in a statement. “This acquisition furthers our mission to deliver an insider perspective to the global fashion community, while offering exciting new functionality and meaningful scale.”
"We are extremely excited to join Fairchild Fashion Media, both to expand NowManifest and to develop future tools and businesses,” said Remröd. “This acquisition validates our model of building a collective and relevant voice for a new generation of increasingly influential online fashion writers and their readers.”
It’s certainly a coup for the bloggers, who’ve been building legitimate businesses for years but still in some cases struggle to be taken seriously by traditional fashion media. Of course, working for an established company like Fairchild is sure to change some rules for the bloggers: Fairchild, for example, has a strict no-gifting policy, and while bloggers are required by the FTC to disclose items they’re given for free, they’re certainly allowed to accept. Could this mean no more gratis goodies for the NowManifest team?
