NUMBERS GAME: London’s Frieze Art fair rolled all the way through the weekend, and the parties didn’t stop. Among them was a dinner that Charles Finch, film industry veteran and founder of the cinema-focused title A Rabbit’s Foot hosted alongside Bettina Korek, chief executive officer of Serpentine Galleries.
Guests from the worlds of art and film gathered at hot boutique hotel The Twenty Two in Grosvenor Square for a roast chicken dinner (with chocolate brownies for dessert) during the buzzy fair where artwork was selling quickly, almost as soon as the doors opened.
Artists including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Marc Quinn and Yinka Ilori broke sourdough bread with film folks including director Baff Akoto and actors Daryl McCormack, Claire Forlani, Greta Bellamacina and Josie Ho.
Gallerists, collectors and art experts at the table included Ben Brown, Maja Hoffmann and Katy Hessel, whose book “The Story of Art Without Men,” was an instant bestseller last year.
Jean Pigozzi
Lexie Moreland/WWD
Collector Jean Pigozzi, who’s been making waves in the art world, was also in the room. Pigozzi plans to donate his large contemporary African art collection to a new museum in Cannes. It will be at the Saint-Roch chapel, and is set to open in 2026.
Finch said he was keen to get the crowd together as A Rabbit’s Foot “has always had film and culture at its heart.” He said the Serpentine, including chairman Michael Bloomberg and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the galleries’ artistic director, have supported him forever, and are always interested in looking at the intersection of art and film.
The dinner was one of many big moments Finch has planned in the coming months for A Rabbit’s Foot and his various other businesses.
The next issue of A Rabbit’s Foot will hit shelves on Dec. 7, with the theme of “cars, bikes, motorbikes and the movies,” he said.
Tierney Gearon has photographed a spread on surfers and what they ride on dry land, while another feature is dedicated and the late director William Friedkin, whose car chase scene in “The French Connection,” has become part of the cinematic canon.
Finch is also reprising his Power of Film series of talks in London in 2024, and said he’s hopeful the Hollywood actors’ strike will come to an end soon so that his production company can start casting “Miss Julie,” one of a series of films he has in the pipeline. “It’s ready to go,” he said. – Samantha Conti
PROFIT DENT: Restructuring costs, disposals and Russia’s war in Ukraine dented profits at Condé Nast’s international arm in fiscal 2022, according to accounts filed at Companies House in the U.K.
The division, Condé Nast Holdings Ltd., oversees print, digital and special events. It posted a 41 percent drop in profits to 15.6 million pounds for the 12 months to Dec. 31. Turnover in the period was down 4 percent to 254.2 million pounds.
Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford onstage during Vogue World: London.
Getty Images for Vogue
The accounts refer to Condé’s business in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy and Spain, where it publishes more than 30 editions of titles including Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Architectural Digest, Wired and Condé Nast Traveller.
Condé Nast Holdings Ltd. is ultimately owned by Advance Publications Inc., which is based in New York.
The company, which describes itself as “digital first,” saw newsstand and subscription sales decline by 21 percent to 42.4 million pounds in the 12-month period, while ad revenues were broadly flat at 211.8 million pounds.
Extraordinary losses in the period totaled 3.1 million pounds compared with 13.1 million pounds in the previous period. They resulted from a number of factors including restructuring costs, which Condé said were mainly due to staff severance pay as the publisher reorganizes its editorial and commercial teams.
As reported, Condé has been consolidating editorial staff and sharing content across territories as part of a new structure.
The teams ultimately report to Anna Wintour, Condé Nast global chief content officer and Vogue editor in chief, who has solidified her dominance over the company’s editorial operations over the last few years.
Last month, Condé named Chioma Nnadi as British Vogue’s head of editorial content, taking over responsibilities from Edward Enninful, who will be assuming a new role at Condé Nast.
Unlike Enninful, Nnadi will not hold the title of editor in chief. Rather, as head of editorial content, she will look after the day-to-day running of the magazine, mirroring the setup at all of Condé Nast’s titles.
In fiscal 2022 Condé also ceased publishing in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, and wrote off 5.1 million pounds as result. The company also divested its London-based education businesses, incurring a loss of 1.3 million pounds.
The Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design, which launched in 2013 and offered a range of courses as well as bachelor and master of arts degrees, was sold to BrandEd, a global education company. – S.C.
MEN’S STYLE: The Italian edition of Esquire has found a new editor in chief in Giovanni Audiffredi, WWD has learned.
The seasoned editor and Condé Nast veteran who has most recently dedicated his career to freelancing and consulting is to join the Hearst-owned men’s publication in January, the media company said Monday.
He succeeds Massimo Russo, Hearst Italy’s chief content officer, who had taken the helm of the magazine on an interim basis in 2021 following an internal reorganization at the publisher of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health, among other titles. Before Russo took on the interim role, Alan Prada was Esquire’s editor in chief.
“Together with [Massimo] Russo we had been looking for a long time for a professional with the right know-how and background to further develop one of the most storied and relevant Hearst titles in the world,” said Giacomo Moletto, chief executive officer of Hearst Italy. “Audiffredi is certainly a high-profile choice for Esquire, a magazine that is able to describe the evolution of men’s style comprehensively,” he added.
Giovanni Audiffredi, the new editor in chief of Italy’s Esquire.
Courtesy of Hearst
Audifreddi currently contributes regularly to Italy’s progressive newspaper La Repubblica and especially its fashion-leaning weekly supplement D. He is also editorial and content director of Milan-based PR firm Attila & Co. Before that, he had spent more than 14 years of his career at rival publisher Condé Nast where he contributed to lead AD and Vanity Fair before taking on the role of Italy’s GQ editor in chief in 2019.
In his new role at Hearst Italy, Audifreddi will also lead the editorial direction for the Men’s Health and Runner’s World glossies, supporting those titles’ current editor in chief Rosario Palazzolo.
On Monday, Hearst also announced that Nik Piras, currently fashion director at DLui, the men’s supplement to La Repubblica, is joining Hearst as fashion director across Esquire, Men’s Health and Runner’s World.
Nik Piras, the new fashion director at Italy’s Esquire, Men’s Health and Runner’s World.
Mario Zanaria/Courtesy of Hearst
Piras and Audiffredi have previously worked together at GQ, as the former was the title’s fashion director during the latter’s tenure at the magazine. Piras cut his teeth at women’s magazines including Amica and Velvet.
In light of these appointments, Hearst said that the Italian edition of Esquire will have eight printed issues in 2024.- Martino Carrera
