A day after shaking up the publisher ranks at Glamour, Condé Nast has replaced Brandon Holley as editor of Lucky, its smaller but ailing fashion magazine.
Holley’s replacement is Eva Chen, who has had stints at Vogue, Teen Vogue and Elle and most recently was consulting on Lucky, working with Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue and artistic director of Condé Nast. The move is one of the first to showcase Wintour's growing influence at the company, although the irony is that Holley reportedly was one of the first to reach out to Wintour for advice when she got the corporate role.
Holley has left the company. Chen was said to be “behind closed doors” and unavailable for comment.
The shopping magazine Lucky was considered revolutionary when it launched in 2000, but it has struggled to keep up as buying behavior has moved online and the title's buzz diminished. When Holley was brought on two years ago, her launch of Yahoo’s Shine, a women's hub, was seen as a positive move for the brand. While Lucky has dabbled in e-commerce, Holley fell short of the goal of making Lucky a major online shopping destination.
Meantime, both ad pages and circulation have flagged, leading to speculation that Lucky would become an online-only pub. Six months ago, the company took the unusual step of doing away with the publisher's title and appointing a brand manager to head sales as well as editorial. The company also said Lucky would launch an e-commerce platform, an announcement that now seems premature.
Condé Nast made no mention of Lucky’s troubles or its e-commerce plans in its announcement today. “It’s still a priority for Lucky, but we don’t have anything to talk about yet,” a spokeswoman said.
In a statement, Wintour alluded to Chen’s digital and e-commerce experience, adding, "From the streets of New York City to Shanghai and everywhere in between, Eva is the quintessential Lucky girl."