In the closely watched March issues of fashion magazines — where fashion designers typically advertise their spring and summer collections — the Condé Nast flagship Vogue retained its customary No. 1 spot.
Vogue had 442.74 ad pages, up 3.7 percent, handily beating Time Inc.’s In Style, which came in No. 2 with 347.0 ad pages, up a healthy 39 pages, or 13 percent.
Rounding out the top 5 are: Elle, with 319 ad pages, Harper’s Bazaar’s 271 ad pages were good for No. 4, and W, with 204 ad pages, came in No. 5.
“The categories that were strong were jewelry, fashion, retail, and beauty, both prestige and mass,” said Susan Plagemann, Vogue publisher. She said this year is very comparable to last year, a climate she called good, and is ahead of the title’s average ad page total of the past five years.
All the other major fashion magazines had strong showings, giving hope once again that the magazine industry has righted itself and could be heading for a slight 2012 rebound.
At In Style, the increase resulted in the largest March ad page haul in its 18 years of existence.
“March was in like a lion,” said publisher Connie Anne Phillips, who has racked up double-digit growth for the past three years.
Elle, in its first season as a Hearst-owned title, finished with 319 ad pages, up 6 pages, or 2 percent, from a year earlier. That was still enough to keep it ahead of sister book, Harper’s Bazaar, the longtime Hearst title which now has former Elle publisher Carol Smith in the same top slot.
HB posted 271 ad pages, a 37-page, or 16 percent jump from a year ago.
HB recently decided to scrap its December/January issue and go to a 10 times a year frequency, following a redesign in which it boosted its trim size or dimensions and began using heavier stock paper that advertisers usually crave.
W magazine had 204 ad pages — and its 41 ad page jump translated into a 25 percent gain over last year. Despite W’s fifth-place showing, its ad page increase and its percentage jump made it the fastest growing title in the fashionista world.
In the past, a good March by the fashion magazines, generally presaged a good year in the glossy magazine world in general.
But that did not happen a year ago, when a hopeful March helped fuel a slight gain for most magazines in the first half — only to see economic unrest hurt the industry’s ad page tally in the second half.
Ultimately consumer magazines finished down a collective 3.1 percent on the year.
kkelly@nypost.com