November 20, 2008

Death of a Stylephile

This, dear readers, is the final Stylephile post for the foreseeable future.
Along with Wall Street, WaMu and the city of Detroit, this esteemed lifestyle blog has fallen victim to the bananas collapse of the American economy.
A few days ago, I was informed of my forthcoming execution.
And as I kneel, blindfolded, neck on recessionary chopping block, let me take these last few moments to flash back through history with you...
The Stylephile was envisioned by Variety Vice President of Sales (online) Dea Lawrence, who spoke with Tom Tapp (editor of VLife magazine) about her idea to create a style blog and newsletter. VLife writers Ginny Chien and Anna Lisa Raya developed the concept and on Oct 22, 2004, The Stylephile was born. Jean Paul Gaultier had just launched his men's makeup line, ShopBop.com had just entered cyberspace and the very awesome Alpha Male store in West Hollywood had just opened its doors. Happy days.
Here are some of the very first posts.
When VLife ended, Ginny stayed on as The Stylephile editor with Tasha Nita Adams as a contributor for the blog. Ginny suggested The Stylephile also appear in print to complement the print daily paper's Vpage section and it eventually did (after Ginny's departure) and was integrated into the Variety Weekend section under the editorial direction of Monica Corcoran with Laura Repstad as a contributor. When Variety Weekend ended, the Stylephile went back to being an online-only product under Mia McNiece. I took over in November 2007.
The very talented Tara Simm and Martha Hernandez designed the current look of The Stylephile Newsletter, which won a Gold Award in Newsletter Design Excellence for "Best Consumer Subscription Newsletter" in 2006 from www.Newsletterbiz.com. And The Stylephile was a finalist in the 2007 L.A. Press Club awards for best Weblog.
In just a few minutes, The Stylephile's life support will be set to minimum, and the site will peacefully enter a vegetative state.
Please don't cry. All of the posts of the last four years will remain online (should you ever wish to research what Hollywood was wearing in August 2005, for instance).
Please do continue to read all of Variety's excellent blogs, which you can find at www.variety.com. And should you have any questions, comments or requests, don't hesitate to contact me at caroline@carolineryder.com or visit me at www.carolineryder.com.
On behalf of everyone at Variety and the former editors of The Stylephile, I'd like to thank you all for coming on this most fashionable of rides. It's been a blast...

Fin.

November 20, 2008 in PICK OF THE DAY | Permalink

Comments

The Stylephile is a potent cocktail of sweet and sour musings on the culture of keeping up appearances. Style should never be a humorless pursuit.
Let style editor Caroline Ryder entertain you.