Media

Nylon magazine to combine with popular blog

Nylon, the 15-year-old cutting-edge fashion magazine and Web site, has been sold to LA-based private-equity firm Diversis Capital and will be combined with FashionIndie.com, its recently purchased digital outfit.

The move will push out the co-founders, Editor-in-Chief Marvin Scott Jarrett and his wife, Jaclynn Jarrett, the mag’s publisher.

The new chief executive will be Joe Mohen, founder of Election.com, while Dana Fields, a former publisher of Rolling Stone and ex-president at lad mag FHM, gets the call as publisher and chief revenue officer. FashionIndie’s Daniel Saynt will be the chief creative officer.

“We shocked everyone because we’re combining a profitable fashion magazine with a profitable fashion Internet company,” Mohen said.

FashionIndie specializes in so-called “native advertising,” which runs sponsored ads that resemble editorial. Blogs include “Wendy’s Lookbook” and “The Blonde Salad,” by Chiara Ferragini, and others that run posts that collectively pull in about 8 million followers.

The company will be called Nylon for now, Mohen said. FashionIndie will join its sibling at the mag’s Soho headquarters.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Obviously, the big upside is digital, but we think we can still grow the print side as well,” Mohen said.

Marc Luzzatto, chief executive of Diversis, vowed to make “very significant investments, minimum of seven figures, to develop the digital side.”

“We expect we will keep the majority of the full-time staff,” Saynt said, noting that a search is under way for a new editor-in-chief to succeed Jarrett. Nylon Executive Editor Ashley Baker has been asked to stay on.