Magazine for metrosexual men

By GEORGINA BOND

Modern urban Kiwi males may find their own fashion bible in a new magazine hitting news stands today.

Fashion Quarterly Men, thought to be New Zealand's first male fashion and grooming magazine, has been launched to meet a gap in the market created by the rise of the metrosexual male.

The ACP Media title is a companion to the well-established Fashion Quarterly magazine which, with a readership of 196,000, has for 23 years been pitched as the premiere fashion guide for NZ women.

Bearing the same brand attributes, FQ Men is a prestige, high-end, luxury fashion title, targeting men aged 25-45 years who earn more than $60,000 a year.

With a primary focus on gadgets, grooming and sex, FQ Men will cover topics from wine selection to party hot spots, suit styles to skin care. It will showcase New Zealand's high fashion labels and profile highflyers in the business and sporting world.

ACP Media group publisher Debra Millar said the content was about fashion and living stylishly, while offering a "really good read" with a slightly cheeky, irreverent tone she believed would appeal to the target market.

FQ Men will initially be published bi-annually and the next edition, autumn/winter, will arrive in March. ACP Media managing director Heith Mackay-Cruise said there were plans to increase publication frequency.

Mackay-Cruise said he believed there was a ready market for the magazine, with one of the key drivers being the rise of the metrosexual male - defined in Michael Flocker's Guide to Style as a 21st-century trendsetting, straight, urban male who has a heightened aesthetic sense and spends time and money on appearance and shopping.

Estee Lauder Companies general manager Marie-Ann Billens said the metrosexual male was not just a myth. In the past two years, New Zealand had seen a tremendous growth in the male consumer market for skin and haircare products, hair salons and health spas, and retailers were increasingly making space for male grooming products, she said.

New Zealand had also departed from the days when women were the main purchasers of grooming products for men, Billens said.

Mackay-Cruise said New Zealand men needed a magazine that satisfied their increasing appetite for fashion and grooming solutions.

"As they move from Brylcreem and boat shoes to stylish suiting and sophisticated skincare, FQ Men will be their guide," he said.

Millar said with the new generation of young men developing skincare regimes, and as men continued to became more discerning consumers of grooming products, there was a need to educate men about the brands on the market.

As was popular with women's magazines, FQ Men would be directed towards providing guidance on how to get the look and use the products, she said. Millar expected a lot of women would buy FQ Men for men and would become regular readers. For this reason, it had been designed to ensure women would feel comfortable picking it up.

Fashion Quarterly's beauty editor Trudi Brewer will edit the title.

The first spring/summer edition profiles soccer star David Beckham - the world's first self-confessed metrosexual and seemingly the only man who can get away with wearing lacy boxers, diamond studs and headbands.

The fashion section includes a work-wear section, his and her's swimwear, denim trends, and how to get the ultimate work and play wardrobe. Included in the grooming and health section is self-tan know how, men's make-up, 10 steps to a six-pack, summer skin survival, and information on botox, hair colour, facials and teethwhitening.

Other sections include lifestyle, sports, money, and reviews on cars, music, boys toys and what's hot on the web.

Millar said FQ Men was not about feminising men, but about acknowledging that men needed to take care of themselves.

FQ Men retails for $8.95, and Mackay-Cruise said the circulation target for the first edition was 10,000.