In 2022, the Russian press market experienced a sharp and largely traumatic gap. Many of the usual glossy publications have ceased to appear, international licences have been withdrawn, and the idea of a regular flash magazine — as a source of news, trends and benchmarks — has been questioned.
At the same time, the development of online and micro-media has increased, with some editors of the outgoing glare having started their projects (e.g. «The Nightingale» from Ex-Chief Vogue and Tatler Xeniy Solovyova), and the fashion television channel niche has grown so much that it is now difficult to choose which author to give his screen time.
In this context, the magazines inevitably changed their assignment. They no longer compete at the speed of digital platforms or seek to be a daily industry navigator. On the contrary, paper is increasingly becoming a space for deceleration, thoughtful reading and collection.
Today, foreign independent publications are still worth going to Lebigmag, a store that continues to deliver 032c, A Magazine, 1 Granary, Another, i-D, King Kong, and other magazines that set the tone of international fashion talk. But in Russia, too, over the past three years, there has been the formation of its own, albeit more compact, press pool, which in one way or another writes about fashion. In addition to a few classic gloss magazines: Marie Claire, Grazia, and The Voice (formerly Cosmopolitan Russia), some have radically changed the format, while others have emerged from scratch to respond to new requests from readers. As a result, the reader still has a choice if you want to read about fashion without sticking it on the phone screen.
Fashion Photo
Russian independent magazines, working at the interface of flash photography and art, continue to appear despite general changes in the media landscape.
Badlon
Collection of French print with Russian roots, in which fashion becomes part of artistic expression. Here are independent photographers and stylists, who do not illustrate trends, but work as self-contained visual projects, following the motto: «We rember the past, but expore for future.»
Badlon turns. Source: badlonmagazine.com
a href=»https://posemagazine.ru» Target="_blank» rel="noopner norefer">Pose Magazine/h1> Pose Magazine is close, but is further shifted towards art-book: this is a «journal object» from Vadim Galaganov’s styleist and ex-producer Vogue and Elle Helena Serova, where Russian and foreign photographers and stylists are published with an emphasis on body work.
Johnny Summetri for Room 6 Pose. Source: Pose Magazine TV channel
Fashion as an industry
When you think of fashion as a system — with its business models, marketing trends, production cycles, and professional roles — it comes to mind in April 2025, the magazine Fashion Paper.
Fashion Paper/h1> This analytical printed publication deliberately rejects the format of classical gloss. Instead, the magazine offers a conversation about how the local and international fashion and beauty industry works. The brand design, format change, crisis strategies, and data analyst, Fashion Paper, closes an important field of professional fashion reading.
Covers 2nd and 4th Fashion Paper. Source: Fashion Rebels
Fashion as a lifestyle
The widest and most diverse segment is magazines where fashion is embedded in everyday life and lifestyle.
a href=»https://moskvihka.ru/ «target="_blank» rel="noopener norefer">Moskwiczka/h1> Publication on fashion, beauty and secular life, which forms its own view of Moscow’s urban style and cultural environment. Fashion is present here through things, trends, highlights of shows and interviews with heroes, but without a claim to the moral character of the old gloss.
A film from the October issue of Moscow magazine. Source: Social networks of the journal
Rule of life
A magazine replacing Esquire includes fashion as part of a general conversation about hero style, culture and stories. Fash material is embedded in a broader context — along with cinema, literature, and urban life.Interview with designer Helena Tadesse for Moderns in the 21st issue of Rule of Life magazine. Source: HelenaTadasse
a href=»https://walmagazine.com» Target="_blank» rel="noopener norefer">Way of Living (WOL) and Seasons of Life/h1> Way of Living (WOL) and Seasons of Life exist even further from the classical fashn field. In WoL fashion, it appears through design, architecture, and interviews with industry, and in Seasons, it is more in the aesthetic of a way of life, where the more important thing is not clothing in itself, but the visual environment and the sense of time.
Interviews with Ivan Tengran and Olga Corpoit in issues 7 and 12 of WoL magazine, respectively. Source: volmagazine.com
Fashion as Art
A separate line is formed by magazines that view fashion as part of the artistic and intellectual field.
Black Square
Collection journal exhibition where fashion exists on an equal basis with modern art and visual culture. Each issue is dedicated to a contemporary theme that brings together artists and designers, mentors and researchers. Among the themes are «memorandry», «new geography», «self» and «other worlds».Filming at Black Square, May 2025. Photo by Maria Panenkowa, Art Director Ildar Ixanov. Source
«Kazakh New Wave. Streets and buildings of Almaty, landscapes and new fashion brands of Kazakhstan» in Black Square, October 2023. Photo by Maxim Kupreschenko. Source
a href=»https://galllery.art/teams/artpublishing/brnd?utm_source=yandex&utm_media=organic&xref=design.hse.ru&session_id=kAvm2es36siEvLMIlbqs6Ch target="_blank» rel="noopener norefer">ART/h1> Illustrated printed annex to the WAE Journal on Art and Design includes fashion in the academic and historical context of visual arts as a cultural phenomenon.
Revivals of Xenia Guseva’s article on avant-garde textiles in ART 1st issue. Source