Media Insider: Lifestyle, beauty and fashion website Ensemble closing down after five years

Ensemble founders Rebecca Wadey (left) and Zoe Walker Ahwa.

Founders say Ensemble is no longer sustainable ‘emotionally, financially or creatively’.

Lifestyle, beauty and fashion website Ensemble is closing after five years - the latest in a string of media brands to hit troubled times.

Founders Rebecca Wadey and Zoe Walker Ahwa told subscribers and readers today that it was time for Ensemble to take its “final bow” and that the past five years had been “the most rewarding of our careers”.

“... we’re immensely proud of the business and platform we have built together. But there is integrity in knowing when something has come to a natural end – and when it’s time to leave the party."

Lifestyle website Ensemble's announcement that it is shutting down.

They said that from day one, they had promised honesty.

“Over the past year of independent (again) ownership, we’ve poured all our energy into adapting and refining what Ensemble could realistically be.

“But maintaining the standards that we hold for ourselves, and the Ensemble brand, is no longer sustainable – emotionally, financially or creatively.”

Zoe Walker Ahwa and Rebecca Wadey of Ensemble. Photo / Babiche Martens

Ensemble’s closure follows troubled times at two other well-known lifestyle titles.

Metro magazine has lost its four fulltime staff and will use guest editors as it strives to bring its finances back into shape and North & South has delayed plans to bring its printed magazine back to life because of advertising challenges.

Wadey and Walker Ahwa set up Ensemble in 2020 and sold it to publishing company Stuff the following year.

They then bought Ensemble back a year ago after Stuff had been proposing to close the website and brand itself.

“We’re grateful for the opportunity to buy the brand back from Stuff,” editor Walker Ahwa said last November.

“We’ll continue to nurture and grow Ensemble in the truly independent spirit with which we started it, pivoting where needed to reach our audience where they are, uplifting and agitating and (most importantly) having fun along the way.”

In their notice today, Wadey and Walker Ahwa thanked their team, subscribers, readers, advertisers, contributors, friends and family."

“Above all, we want to thank each other – and acknowledge the gift of working together, which has been at the whimsical heart of Ensemble since the beginning."

They said that every cent from subscribers on the Substack content and newsletter platform went towards paying contributors.

“We paused paid subscriptions a couple of weeks ago, and will soon cancel them.”

They said they were “not quite done yet”. Ensemble would publish some farewell stories next week.

Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.