Digital beauty magazine The Kit has been launched

TheKit.ca

The Kit, the promised new, free digital beauty magazine led by former Fashion magazine publisher Georgina Bigioni, has launched. It is aimed directly at the lucrative beauty advertising that is a mainstay of traditional women's service magazines, particularly the fashion titles and, no doubt, very particularly Fashion. A release says

The Kit targets Canadian women, delivering all the latest trends in a digital format that's timelier, more environmentally friendly and much easier to share than a traditional print magazine. This new medium is growing in popularity throughout the U.S., and The Kit is poised to be a Canadian leader in this digital movement, offering women a new, free and highly credible source for all things beauty.

Advertisers include such well-known brands as L'Oreal, Chanel, Biotherm, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Elizabeth Arden and Aveeno.

There is a formidable editorial team, led by Doug Wallace, the former deputy editor of St. Joseph Media's Wish magazine.  Ceri Marsh, the former editor-in-chief of Fashion is the health editor, Janine Falcon, former beauty editor at Canadian Living is the beauty editor, Chantal Simmons, who was editorial director of Sweetspot.ca is the hair editor and the fitness or body editor is Deborah Fulsang, once style editor at Chatelaine, fashion and deputy style editor at the Globe and Mail and style editor of Flare. The art director is Caroline Bishop, who was previously associate art director at Fashion and art director of Fashion18 before becoming art director of the ill-fated RogersTorstar startup Weekly Scoop in 2005.

The magazine is scheduled to publish 6 full issues between now and next November and 11 e-letters. The magazine is being cagey about page rates and specs, requiring anyone to contact Bigioni or associate publisher Michelle Kalman to receive a media kit or make enquiries (which we will do; about which more later). In an earlier post we reported that advertisers were being offered a full page with an active web link in each of the fall and winter issues for $10,000 and that the magazine was targeting 200,000 unique viewers over those two issues.

President and publisher Bigioni says in the release:

"There really isn't a Canadian magazine for women that focuses on beauty inside and out. Women are searching for helpful, easy-to-follow advice that's current but realistic. The Kit brings together some of the best editors in the country and they have produced a gorgeous, uncomplicated and authoritative digital magazine."