Vanity Press

Passion

For English-speaking Parisians and Paris-loving Americans, the magazine of choice must be Passion. Subtitled "The Magazine of Paris," it covers fashion, art, restaurants, shopping, cinema, literature, and other Parisian pursuits, including what's right on the Left Bank and what's left of the Right Bank. It's like New York magazine with a baguette tucked under its arm.

Founded in 1981 by publisher and editor Robert Sarner, a (non-French) Canadian transplant to Paris, Passion is not only the city's sole Englishlanguage bimonthly but also the only bimonthly guide that has managed to survive for five years in the crowded Paris market.

Sarner, thirty-three, declares, "Our chief raison d'etre was to focus almost exclusively on Paris, almost exclusively in English, and directed simultaneously to both expatriate residents and to people in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Toronto." The total circulation is 50,000, with subscribers in thirty-four countries—nearly 3,000 copies are sold in New York.

Passion also courts French-speaking readers with a supplement fran^ais, and Sarner now estimates that nearly a third of his readers are French.

Sarner has started a perfect-bound, full-color glossy titled Accent: The Magazine of Paris Style, published in October and March to coincide (like La Mode en Peinture) with the collections.

P.S. Passion has the cleverest circulation-boosting gimmick of any little mag anywhere, "Kiosk of the Month," featuring a different news vendor's picture in every issue.

Craig Bromberg