Prisma Media to launch French edition of Harper's Bazaar in March

Prisma Media, France’s leading magazine publishing group, will launch the French edition of U.S women's fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar next March, as the group announced in a press release on Tuesday.

The French group, which publishes among others Télé-Loisirs, Voici, Femme Actuelle, Geo, Capital and Gala, said it has obtained from U.S group Hearst Magazines International a license “for several years,” which allows it to introduce the Harper's Bazaar brand in France as a magazine, website and on social media.

Nearly 10 years after Harper's Bazaar’s aborted French market launch by the Marie-Claire group, Prisma Media intends to make the oldest fashion magazine in the U.S “the editorial benchmark for luxury and fashion” in France “for a broad audience of design enthusiasts.”

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Harper's Bazaar publishes 10 issues a year and will be led by Matthias Gurtler, former editor of Gala, who has been named editorial director, and by Olivier Lalanne, previously with GQ and Vogue Homme France, as editor-in-chief.

In addition to Harper's Bazaar, next year Prisma Media intends to launch “another two new magazines: one focusing on youth and the other on personal development,” said Claire Leost, the press group’s president, in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper published on Tuesday.

Prisma Media was acquired in 2021 by French media and telecoms giant Vivendi, led by billionaire Vincent Bolloré, and has been undergoing a major overhaul since then.

Concerning “the shareholder’s alleged meddling,” as Bolloré has been accused of interfering with many of the editorial offices he controls, Leost said that “a lot of false information and genuine fantasies” are being bandied about.

“In the coming months, Prisma Media will introduce a code of conduct in all the group's magazines that will strengthen their independence,” she added.

Asked about the resignation of dozens of journalists at Prisma Media, Leost said it was due to the introduction of a voluntary redundancy plan for the first time since the group was created.

The triggering of a divestiture clause, which allows journalists to leave a publication with compensation following a change of ownership, “was an opportunity for long-term employees close to retirement, or those who wished to move elsewhere,” she said.

Paris, September 27 2022 (AFP)