Newly minted Lucky editor Eva Chen tweeted a sneak peek video of her debut issue this morning. Its content doesn’t reveal much more than the September cover, starring a tousled Blake Lively, that came out yesterday (newsflash: Lucky loves shoes, and personal style bloggers!), but it does show that Chen and her cool pink hair streaks will be the face and brand of the magazine in a way that former editor Brandon Holley really never was.
Sure, Holley did the occasional video for Lucky, and she liked style bloggers, too (here she is with Man Repeller Leandra Medine, for example), but Chen has a massive online fan base (almost 50,000 Twitter followers) who will take fresh interest in Lucky purely because she’s there. It’s wise for Condé Nast, which is in the process of beefing up its web presence, to play off her digital fame. She’s warm, friendly, and clearly comfortable addressing her followers (“I know you guys will love this!”) on-camera.
The video is also 50 percent infomercial for Lucky’s latest giveaways — a Furla backpack, a CC Skye bracelet, and a Diptyque candle, which Chen dutifully raves about for the camera — but Lucky needs those ad dollars right now. And in this digital age, whatever boundaries that existed between sponsored and editorial content have gotten so fuzzy that sometimes they might as well not exist, especially where free stuff is concerned.*
* Just to clarify: Lucky confirms that none of their Lucky Breaks are sponsored.
