Since 2020 there’s been a steady decline in the number and quality of fashion editorial shoots being commissioned in New Zealand. The reasons are many and varied, but they all point to the challenges of creating print media – a traditional industry staple – in a time when advertising is at an all time low.
By Murray Bevan, FNZ Publisher
As showcased in this week’s short and sweet Instax shoot starring Daisy Clementine, the local industry has been forced to think up new and innovative ways of creating owned editorial to promote fashion, and to offer a platform to models, designers, and hair & makeup artists. These challenges don’t just exist in the media, but in events, too. You only have to look at the recent Te Wiki Āhua O Aotearoa fashion shows to see that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are faced with a dearth of fashion media opportunities, meaning they’re going to have to figure out how to be creative, and where that creativity can live. The Āhua shows are a good start, but they can’t exist in isolation, meaning that more young creatives need to find the motivation to build an ecosystem around them.
Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a bad thing from every angle. Riding on the coattails of decades of traditional industry structure is lazy, and there’s no proof that the traditional structure was the best structure anyway. But I feel for young creatives facing a world where their best and brightest creative platform is a 7cm x 15cm glass screen, and not a glossy magazine DPS or an 8m wide billboard on the city’s busiest corner.
Last week we reached out to a handful of photographers, model agents and editors to get their take on the reasons for this drastic collapse of fashion editorial, and how we could rebuild it (if that’s even possible). I bumped into Guy Coombes (one of this week’s commentators) at the photographic exhibition debut of Ngahuia Williams (herself a stalwart of Aotearoa’s fashion legacy) and we got to talking about his answers. He said “We used to be the land of editorial” which I thought was a brilliant, and equally sad comment on what’s happened in the last five years.
Read below as our contributors explain their takes on the decline of editorial in general, the reasons why, and how this decline impacts the whole fashion ecosystem.
Guy Coombes – Photographer
I’ve always been a strong supporter of magazine and editorial photography, having started my career in that space.
In the early days of my career, getting your images published in magazines was a big deal. Being commissioned to shoot a cover or feature editorial essentially meant securing a 10-page portfolio in valuable print space. This not only signified that you were good but also led to opportunities with designers and print campaigns, as this was where many industry eyes were focused before everything shifted to phone screens. There was a clear and achievable progression—something that is now almost nonexistent, as many local fashion designers and brands no longer invest in print campaigns. The goalposts have shifted, and social media has taken over, making editorial photography much less of a stepping stone into larger fashion industry jobs.
From my perspective, the decline of editorial work largely comes down to cost-cutting. With the rising cost of print, every page needs to be monetised, and the first to be cut are usually the editorial spreads. Some publications still produce genuine editorial content where fashion pieces and images are chosen purely on creative merit, but printed media is an expensive commodity. As a result, many publications now prioritize advertorial shoots, where brands pay for placement—because someone has to foot the bill. The industry is evolving, and the luxury of shooting and printing editorial content is no longer as viable as it once was.
That said, editorial jobs have always been and continue to be an incredible opportunity to collaborate directly with editors, stylists, and hair and makeup artists. They foster a great creative atmosphere, and you do it for the love of the craft—which is why I still do it!
Commissions I’ve received from Condé Nast for overseas titles like Vanity Fair come with significantly fewer budget constraints. It ultimately comes down to scale: larger countries have bigger economies and markets. In contrast, New Zealand’s economy is turbulent, and it’s not just media and fashion that are feeling the pressure—it’s widespread. However, creative industries here often run on fumes and feel a bigger pinch.
I’m not sure exactly what’s next in this space. I was a late adopter of content creation on Instagram, having avoided it for a long time. While adapting to some extent is essential, I didn’t start my career with the goal of shooting for a tiny screen, so I have mixed feelings about it. Social media is also a challenging space, where algorithms favour certain content rather than creative talent.
What I would love to see are more independent digital platforms for creatives to contribute to and be part of. Leisa Welch and I create our own beauty and fashion editorials for her website, Beauty Citizen, because sometimes we just want to do our own thing, and that platform provides a nice creative outlet. However, running such platforms requires time, money, and technical expertise, often without financial returns, which is why there aren’t many out there.
Derek Henderson – Photographer
As a young photographer, what were the experiences you had that helped you get noticed and start to land paying jobs? Do those same experiences/channels exist today, and if not, what has replaced them?
Editorial for magazines got you noticed by other magazines, design companies and advertising agencies – that was the way to do it. Getting your images published was what we all aimed for, which I think is still the case, it’s just that now there are more platforms for that. Instagram is a great one as it’s a visual platform – you can curate your own Instagram feed as if it were your own magazine; you can put up images there that weren’t used in the client’s final selects and nobody ever minds. Often I’ll post a carousel of 10-20 images from an editorial I’ve done for a magazine because not all of those images make the magazine.
Do you have thoughts on the future of fashion media, especially fashion editorial, and how it will continue to evolve?
There are specialized magazines out there that do a great job and are stronger than ever. I work for Holiday, a travel and fashion magazine based out of France and it sells out every issue – it’s a bi-annual and is considered to be a bible in the industry along with a healthy following of people interested in long-form journalism, fashion and travel. If you’re a fashion magazine and you’re not doing anything apart from showing seasonal fashion, with a few pages of “here are my favourite pics from the shows”, why would anyone want to buy that? You can see it online the next day after the shows.
The cycle just gets faster and faster and a lot of people in the media and PR business just think that the more stuff they put out there, the better. I don’t think that’s true. You don’t need to show every garment in the collection – let people use their imagination. Of course there are different markets and a lot of fashion has a really fast turnaround, so slow things down a bit – people get bored with feeds that are constantly being updated.
Editorial will survive (in whatever form it may take) by people that have a good understanding of fashion and what can look good and how to achieve that. Image makers not marketing departments.
What would be your top tips for young creatives these days who are looking to break into the fashion world?
Move to Paris, maybe London, and spend at least 10 years there immersing yourself in the industry. There just isn’t a large enough population in New Zealand to support creatives here, like photographers. The rates are low, you will be frustrated, and the creativity you were looking for will be sucked out of you. It’s a shame, but I think that’s the reality. Once you’ve made a name for yourself and you have made connections in those places, you could then possibly move back to the southern hemisphere and travel for work out of New Zealand.
Mandy Jacobsen – Red11 Modelling Agency Director
Red11 has been operating for twenty years and boy have things changed within that time. New Zealand used to be a lucrative market for international models. They could secure that prized gem; a world class editorial that would freshen up their portfolios before they could continue around the world and make some good money. New pictures from a magazine for your portfolio were worth their weight in gold.
A tear sheet from a magazine would also go towards the 50 tear sheets you needed to get a visa for America, especially where New York was the mecca for any upcoming model to reach.
As an international model you could change your whole book from a month long stay in Auckland working with all the editors and photographers here. The makeup artists, photographers and stylists would all get a credit for their work and also build up their portfolios to show the world how good they were and why you should hire them.
The clients here using the international models were also guaranteed a new look and a world-class model for their new campaigns.
It’s harder now to get that constant quality of model to come to New Zealand. Editorials used to be the selling point, and models would make some money on the side. Now it’s about the money despite the fact budgets have been drastically slashed and designers seem to be less and less. New Zealand brands take their business to shoot models overseas as they have a bigger selection to choose from. Creatives leave as there are better opportunities overseas.
Now there are very few magazines shooting here. Everything is online or on social media instantly. Do the creatives get the credit they deserve from us flicking through Instagram now days or do we not even notice who took the shot. We just see the image and either like it or keep scrolling.
What does the future look like for Editorials in NZ? We need to keep being creative and push the boundaries for those beautiful pictures and promote them as much as we can online. As agents we still love and need new pictures of our models.
Sarah Murray – Editor in Chief & Publisher of Fashion Quarterly
The landscape of fashion editorial in Aotearoa has shifted dramatically. With fewer print publications, opportunities to produce traditional fashion editorials have naturally declined. At Fashion Quarterly, we remain committed to the craft, producing at least three to four editorial shoots alongside 1–2 commercial shoots each quarter. Despite the challenges, the appetite for editorial storytelling remains strong. Every issue, we have a long list of talented New Zealand creatives eager to collaborate with us—our biggest challenge is not being able to work with them all. The reality is, to create high-quality editorial content, you need a budget—and for magazines, that means securing advertising revenue.
We focus on building long-term, genuine partnerships with advertisers, allowing us to tell their stories through an FQ lens. As a result, our commercial shoots often embody the same look and feel as our editorial features.
Editorial work has long been a space for creatives to take risks and push visual storytelling in ways that commercial projects often don’t allow. Without the constraints of a highly prescribed campaign or brand directive, photographers, stylists, and other creatives can experiment—essentially honing their artistic voice. However, as traditional editorial opportunities shrink, emerging talent faces fewer chances to develop their craft in this way. The result? A growing homogenization of imagery, where the experimental become rarer. It’s also difficult for young creatives to step into lead roles, whether as photographers or stylists. Instead, many now turn to self-publishing on social media, where they can still build a portfolio of work, or they transition directly into commercial projects from the outset.
At Fashion Quarterly, we see the future of fashion content as a multi-platform experience, seamlessly spanning print, digital, social media, and live events. The key to standing out lies in offering something different—a stark contrast to the trend-driven content that dominates platforms like TikTok. For fashion content to truly thrive in New Zealand, we need to champion our own creative voices—working with local designers, photographers, and stylists to produce work that reflects our unique perspective on fashion.
Innovation is essential—we have to keep pushing creative and technological boundaries to keep fashion content fresh and exciting. In 2023, we experimented with an AI-generated fashion editorial using pieces from New Zealand designers. While it was a fascinating exercise, it highlighted something crucial: nothing replaces the energy and magic of a real-life shoot.
Influence opens massive opportunities for emerging creatives and social platforms have given space to a new generation of stylists and storytellers to build their own audiences. And to me, imagination is at the heart of editorial. The best shoots—the ones that stick with you—aren’t just about trends. They’re about vision. The most compelling fashion imagery comes from original ideas and collaborations, not simply replicating what’s trending on social media.
Katherine Lowe – Director of Super Management
There’s been an obvious decline in editorial generally in New Zealand, and especially in fashion. In the modelling industry this is particularly sad as models rely on editorial for both their portfolios and for US working visas. It’s important for them to get experience in shooting that way if they want to be more fashion-focussed, and be able to book a variety of jobs in the international market.
New Zealand used to be a great development market for new models to come to, to gain experience and get good editorial and pictures for their books, as well as be able to do small commercial jobs (which is why back in the day we saw models like Abbey-Lee and Andreja Pejic and a whole host of others come in before going off to do bigger things) but unfortunately that’s no longer the case. Magazines are dwindling, and there’s a larger focus on online media content.
If I’m being frank, I would believe it all comes down to money (or lack thereof). Magazines are expensive to produce, and there’s just not the interest in them that there used to be. There’s a run-on effect – photographers and stylists have less work and can’t sustain themselves so they either focus solely on commercial jobs that pay, or leave the country, and both of those options mean there’s less talent available for up-and-comers to learn from.
I think about the future of the NZ fashion industry a lot, especially considering AI is coming for a lot of these skilled creative’s jobs (including models!) Also, I haven’t come up with the answer to AI other than to cross my fingers and hope that we will all continue to try and fight for the industry by supporting editorial and talented up and coming creatives – if only to keep these opportunities open for the next generation and for the sake of art! Wouldn’t it be great for us to thrive?
I do feel optimistic though – young people will find a way to make it work. They’re growing up in the age of the internet so they know it really well. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bunch of teens creating ideas for their own fashion magazines (online or otherwise) right now.