‘We are expecting a very tiny uplift in figures,’ said Cassandra, taking a sip of water. ‘As you know we have had some incredible sales in this period, but it’s a very competitive market out there right now. That said, our market share is excellent: we remain the number one choice for premium fashion advertisers and our covers are some of the most talked about in the business. Which,’ she paused and placed her manicured hands flat on the table, ‘is why we’re here.’
At the back of the room, Lianne flipped a switch and the covers from Rive over the last six months flashed up. Next came Vogue’s covers, then those of Class magazine.
What was noticeable was the regularity with which the magazines’ cover stars were repeated. If Angelina was on one cover one month, she’d be on somebody else’s the next – in many instances, the same actress or singer was on two or three magazines the same month. Deborah Kane, Rive’s entertainment editor, leant forward. Deborah was in charge of liaising with celebrity publicists and securing the celebrities for the magazine.
‘It’s getting more and more difficult, Cassandra,’ said Deborah. ‘Increasingly we can only get a star to agree to be in Rive when they are promoting something. And I can name five top LA and New York publicists who won’t agree to exclusivity, so you get Jennifer turning up on three covers in one month. It’s the same problem for everybody.’
‘We aren’t everybody,’ snapped Cassandra. ‘We have to provide our readers with exclusivity. We have to get them the un-get-able.’
‘Well, what about using more models?’ suggested Deborah.
‘With the exception of Clover Connor and Summer Sinclair, models just don’t work as well for us as celebrities,’ said Giles, folding his arms.
‘Besides, as some of you here may know,’ said Cassandra, ‘I want to refresh the magazine for our March issue.’ The March and September issues were the two most important issues of the year because they launched the new fashion season and would be full of advertising for the new lines from every fashion house.
‘You mean redesign?’ asked Jeremy, her features editor.
She glared at Jeremy, fully understanding his implication. The dreaded ‘R’ word – a redesign – was the industry’s tool for propping up an ailing or stagnant magazine.
‘Not a redesign, Jeremy,’ she said, icily, ‘a refresh. I don’t expect you to be aware of the subtler nuances of magazine publishing, but we need to mix things up for the reader. So what do we have so far?’
Giles cleared his throat. ‘We have an entertaining slot pencilled in: Cavalli has agreed to throw a lunch on his yacht. He’ll get lots of celebrities there although, obviously, they’ll have to be wearing Cavalli. We also have an art special…’ he said, pushing across a 1930s cover of French Vogue which featured a beautiful water-colour of a model. ‘Lagerfeld is doing some exclusive illustrations for us along these lines. I think they’ll be fabulous.’
Cassandra nodded her approval. ‘Art and fashion. Very Rive,’ she said.
Francesca, her fashion director, looked efficiently through her notes. ‘We obviously won’t know our stories until after the shows but I think Mert & Marcus are on board to shoot twenty pages of trends, which will be a studio shoot. For our location shoot, I’m thinking somewhere edgy and difficult. Maybe a knitwear shoot in Sierre Leone or perhaps guns and couture in Darfur.’
David Stern grimaced as Cassandra glanced over at Lianne to make sure she was taking full notes.
‘I like it. Features?’
‘I thought of the cover-line ‘Fashion Muses Compare Notes,’ where we do a big photo-shoot with everyone from Amanda Harlech to Stella Tennant and Sophia Coppola,’ said Jeremy, feeling less bold after his dressing down.
‘Salman Rushdie wants to do an essay for us. He’s thinking of appropriate subject matter.’
‘Nothing too contentious,’ replied Cassandra raising an eyebrow.
‘“Botox Beneath the Burka” is a report we wanted to do on plastic surgery in the Middle East. And of course we have the “At Home” special.’
‘Continue,’ Cassandra nodded. At Home’s were the holy grail of features. Voyeuristic and usually sumptuous, they offered an insight into the celebrity’s world you just couldn’t get from a straightforward interview.’
‘Who have we got so far?’
‘George Clooney’s Lake Como villa …’
‘Gorgeous but done already by Vanity Fair,’ Cassandra snapped. ‘Come on, work harder, I want exclusives here.’
‘Well, Catherine Zeta Jones at her Bermuda house fell through.’
‘Why?’
Deborah Kane had the pinched look of someone who was sucking a lemon.
‘A clash with filming,’ she shrugged, ‘plus I think she really wanted to be shot in a studio.’
‘I don’t want excuses,’ said Cassandra, struggling to control her temper, ‘I want results. What Rive needs for its March cover is something special, something extra special, something that has never been seen before in the pages of a magazine. We need to be the ones to deliver the unbelievable.’
She thought of the Princess Diana pictures shot by Mario Testino, images that were still being talked about over a decade later, or Demi Moore naked and pregnant, a pose that had been copied by dozens of magazines around the world. She needed something to make the readers sit up and notice. That would make Pierre Desseau sit up and notice, she thought. She looked round the room and was met by a sea of blank faces.