>> BLOWING THE COVER —Some were hoping that Katie Grand would cast a model to do the honors of Love's inaugural cover, but it looks like rumor is turning to fact, and she's gone another direction.  The Gossip's Beth Ditto, a Brit fash pack favorite, has already been shot instead. [Fashionista]

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>>  If one fashion magazine isn't hurt by the current economic conditions, it has to be Katie Grand's new endeavor for Conde Nast UK, Love.  The "high-end," "edgy" magazine, which was originally being tossed around for a February or March 2009 launch, is going full-steam ahead — new logo above — with an official launch on Feb. 19.  Katie has taken most of her team from POP — including creative directors Lee Swillingham and Stuart Spalding, plus fashion editor Phoebe Arnold, who masqueraded around as a gravestone with the POP logo on it at Halloween.

New additions to the team include — as rumored — Francesca Burns, formerly of i-D, as senior fashion editor-at-large, plus Mark Frith, former editor of celebrity rag Heat, as editorial consultant.  And Katie won't be the only stylist heavyweight on board — Joe McKenna is on the masthead as senior contributing fashion editor.

>> Despite rumors that POP was done now that founder Katie Grand is leaving, the magazine's publisher Bauer has reaffirmed that they are sticking with their original plan.

Bauer sent out Katie's final issue — coincidentally the 20th anniversary issue, which features Drew Barrymore on the cover — to advertisers with a flyer, announcing that a new editor is actively being recruited, and that POP will be taking a small hiatus.  A spokeswoman explained:

It is inevitable a new editor will bring a new vision to the brand, but we are not prepared — nor under any pressure — to rush out an interim issue for the sake of it.  We would rather invest time in relaunching in the Fall 2009 with a magazine that will create a real difference to the fashion industry.  POP was, is, and will continue to be, a valuable member of our portfolio and we are really excited about what the future holds for the brand. The new era of POP launches Fall 2009.

Wonder who the new blood will be, since Katie took her entire POP staff with her to her new magazine, Love?

>> Katie Grand's new magazine has a name — Love — just as previously rumored.  Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Conde Nast UK, which is publishing the magazine, explains: "We came up with the name together.  It's just a great name. It's a very positive name denoting a love of fashion and a love of style."

Love — which comes out late February, early March, will go for £5 and is already attracting a "very positive response" from advertisers.  It's also rumored to have attracted Francesca Burns from her post as fashion editor at i-D — she's said to be joining Love as senior fashion editor-at-large.

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>> Katie Grand is working on her last issue of POP as we speak, and it looks like, after twenty issues and eight years, it might be the last issue of POP ever. Although Bauer vowed that POP would continue on, post-Katie Grand, Hint is reporting that the initial intent thas "hit a snag" and POP is done.

Meanwhile, Katie's new larger, as-yet-untitled "bespoke" biannual for Conde Nast UK is rumored to have a title: Love.  If true, the name portends good things for the new project — a labor of love for Katie Grand.

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>> We know that Katie Grand is leaving POP to start a new edgy fashion magazine for Conde Nast UK, but what's going to happen to POP after its founder leaves?  And how did this all come about in the first place?

It turns out that Conde originally tried to buy POP — "we kept hearing [the magazine's publisher Bauer] weren't very committed to POP" — but Bauer declined.  Instead, Conde Nast poached Katie, who looked at either option — moving POP or just herself to Conde — as okay: "I kind of knew that Condé Nast had put in bids for POP.  I thought, if it happens, great. If not, it would also be great to do something new . . . Maybe it's better just to do something that's completely a fresh start."

By the end of her run at Bauer — which does a lot of business with its weekly titles like Heat and Grazia — Katie was feeling out of place: "There was a definite feeling of being a square peg in a round hole.  We were acutely aware of doing something different from everyone else.  By the end, to be walking through radio advertising or whatever and be openly called 'the weirdos', it was just unpleasant."

She's still currently working on the December issue of POP — likely to be her last — and is taking her whole POP team with her to the new, untitled magazine at Conde Nast.  So what is Bauer doing with POP in the post-Katie era?  According to David Davies, managing director of Bauer's women's magazines division, this is just a regular editor turnover, and POP will continue to exist: "We'll continue in the more maverick role.  Katie has probably achieved what she's going to with the title.  POP will be very different going forward and it's very exciting for us."
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>> INSIDER WIRE — Katie Grand's picked herself up a new magazine deal, but all we really know about the new mag is that it will be biannual and high-end fashion.  Since the launch isn't until March, it will be a while before we get more specifics, but according to Katie, "it will be different, though not completely different . . . My aim is to do something as cool as POP but with a much wider circulation, which I think we will be able to achieve with the incredible marketing budget [Conde Nast has] given us." [Style File]

>> Katie Grand may be in the midst of styling Spring 2009 shows, but she's got another exciting project in the works.  As rumored, she is leaving POP — which she founded in 2000 — to start up a new biannual high-end fashion magazine for Conde Nast UK.

Though the magazine is untitled and much is still to be decided, Grand promises the move is a good one: "I can't wait to get started.  I feel the time is ready for a new magazine, a new arena for new ideas. This time we'll have a larger format, bigger budgets and broader horizons than ever before."  The bigger budget may have been the main reason for the move — Katie has said in the past that for POP shoots, "Often the photographers are using their own money."

Nonetheless, she has plenty of experience founding a magazine — she helped launch Dazed & Confused and Another Magazine before POP.  The new title hits newsstands in March, and as for the future of POP . . .  no one has spoken to that.
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>> INSIDER WIRE — Is Katie Grand moving away from POP and toward Conde Nast?  So say the unfounded rumors, which place POP's founding editor leaving her project in the dust — the editor she supposedly offered it to turned the job down — to start up a new magazine for Conde. [Fashionista]

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