We've lost another great home decor magazine. MediaBistro has the press release from Hachette Filipacchi which says that the December 2009 issue of Metropolitan Home will be its last. The publisher has decided to focus all of its shelter mag energy on Elle Decor, the spin off from Elle magazine. In the press release President and CEO Alain Lemarchand said that at this point "the best strategy in the upscale shelter segment is to boldly focus our resources and investment on Elle Decor, which is the ad-page leader within the U.S. market."

Fans of design magazines are reeling especially after Conde Nast shut down the beloved Domino earlier this year. As with the case with the closure of Gourmet over Bon Appetit last month, there are some who feel that Metropolitan Home was the superior title and the one that should have been saved.

MediaWeek reports that ad pages for Metropolitan Home have fallen 34 percent in 2009. Hachette will also be shutting down Pointclickhome.com, the site that was once the online presence of its three shelter magazines: Home, Metropolitan Home and Elle Décor. Now just ElleDecor.com, which is currently part of Pointclickhome.com, will remain.

More bad news for the magazine industry hit last week: Condé Nast is closing down several of its big-name magazines, names you know - Gourmet, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride - and one you may not, Cookie, which is about parenthood.

The New York Times noted, "[Gourmet] has suffered a severe decline in ad pages, but the cut still comes as a shock. There was speculation that Condé Nast would close one of its food titles - Gourmet or Bon Appétit - but most bets were on the latter. Gourmet has a richer history than Bon Appétit, and its editor, Ruth Reichl, is powerful in the food world. Cookie is a relatively new introduction, started in 2005, while the bridal magazines were seen as offshoots of the bigger Brides magazine, which Condé Nast also owns."

The cuts were done at the conclusion of a three-month study by McKinsey & Company, which conducted an analysis of Condé Nast's costs and recommended that several magazines cut about 25 percent from their budgets. These are the first closings announced by the company since the study.

These are not the first magazines shuttered by Condé Nast, even though, as the Times notes, the company never has been quick to close titles, and in the last year or so has closed only newer titles, Condé Nast Portfolio and Domino, along with folding Men's Vogue into Vogue.

This isn't the first time Luxist has noted magazine closings either. See this piece I did last month, which mentions in the gallery some other closings noted by my colleagues.

Chanel top man Karl Lagerfeld and designer Philippe Starck will guest-edit the October 2009 issue of interiors title Wallpaper*, according the Guardian.

Lagerfeld has designed a "peelable" cover for the monthly title, which features model Baptiste Giabiconi. Readers can peel back this image to reveal another cover, which shows Giabiconi nude.

Starck, best known for designing high-end hotels, has constructed a transparent front cover using three layers of tracing paper (see it on the Wallpaper* home page).

Lagerfeld and Starck have each edited large sections of the issue, out now. Lagerfeld, also a sought-after photographer, has shot Giabiconi in a variety of historical settings across continental Europe, including Rome and Paris. He also writes about his collection of houses.

Starck is more philosophical, focusing on "mankind's quest to discover the meaning of life and interviewing scientists, physicists and cosmologists," the Guardian said. "It is my mission to make intelligence sexy," Starck said.

Though the site in question is still up as I write this, it was reported in the New York Post that Time magazine has shut down its fashion quarterly, Style & Design. The Post item states, "Time blamed the collapse of the luxury market for the move. 'This really is a suspended publication,' said a spokeswoman of the one million-circulation magazine. 'We'd hope to bring it back when the economy improves.' " Kate Betts, the one-time editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar who had been editor of Time Style & Design, will remain with the company and is expected to cover this month's Fashion Week shows for Time. Four other staffers were let go.

Time Style & Design tried to have an American and a European circulation base, in a bid to capture the eye -- and ad dollars -- of fashion designers in New York as well as in Paris, Milan, and London. About 550,000 subscribers were based in the United States, and 450,000 in Europe.

This event marks the second time during the third quarter that Time Inc. has shut down a magazine. Last month, the company closed Southern Accents, part of Time Inc.'s Southern Progress subsidiary.

Fashion Week Daily is worried about the future of Town & Country magazine. Building on a Page Six report that Hearst has been looking for a new editor to replace Pamela Fiori, T&C's editor-in-chief, Fashion Week Daily speculates that Hearst might close the title entirely. It is true that Hearst has not spent significant money building the T&C website the way they have with other Hearst titles like Esquire and Marie Claire but a Hearst spokesperson told Fashion Week Daily that the website has never been a priority for this particular brand partly because "T&C's affluent audience spends less time online" than the audience for other titles. That seems like a potentially flimsy explanation especially when paired with another quote that the magazine is a subscription-driven magazine with "a very loyal fan base for the print product." Doesn't sound like a title in growth mode.

But there are many reasons that Town & Country can, and most likely will, stay afloat. First of all, the history and tradition. This is a magazine which began in 1846 and has been part of the lives of many generations. More than a magazine, Town & Country has served as a benchmark for the affluent. Its habit of showcasing wealthy and beautiful women has made social careers. Grabbing the cover has been sometimes seen as a socialite's mark of ascension. The magazine also has a significant history with philanthropy. Pamela Fiori was a founding co-chairperson of UNICEF's Snowflake Project. Much of the magazine's content has been not just about shopping and travel but also about the responsibilities of wealth including volunteering and donating as well as points of etiquette. Another good reason for Hearst not to give up on Town & Country would be its ancillary products. The brand has spawned a travel website and wedding magazine. It also publishes a series of books.

Times are tough for any magazine and luxury magazines are more expensive to produce than some other titles. Those lavish photoshoots in exotic locales really add up. Publishers Information Bureau recently reported first half advertising and paging figures which showed that Town&Country fell 43 percent to 429 pages. Rough numbers that landed it on Magazine Death Pool's recent list of magazines in danger (a list that also included Departures, Architectural Digest and W).

As the NY Times mentions, one would think that Guitar Aficionado was the new kid brother to Cigar Aficionado magazine. Both have covers with celebrities proudly showing off their toys, be it cigars or guitars. But Guitar Aficionado doesn't come from Marvin Shanken's empire but from the same people who created Guitar World and Guitar Legends, Future US. Guitar Aficionado courts the more upscale guitar fan, the person who buys an expensive guitar in concert with other fine goods such as a fine watch, a good Scotch, and perhaps a good cigar (maybe these magazines should swap ad space?). Guitar Aficionado will launch its first issue with celebrity chef Tom Colicchio on the cover and will publish quarterly.

The NY Times quotes publisher Greg Di Benedetto as saying that the title's similarity to Cigar Aficionado was not intentional although he does point out that the two titles rhyme. The similarities are striking though.

Is right now the time for a new luxury magazine in New York? A Singapore-based company, CR Media thinks so. The Wall Street Journal's Wealth Report is a little more skeptical. "Prestige New York" is the newest version of an ad-heavy glossy luxury magazine that is popular in Asia.

CR Media has put together a list of 50,000 subscribers in the New York tristate area with a net worth of $10 million or more. Prestige says that their list, which was developed by Larkspur and finds people using public filings on stock transfers and other data is more "purely rich" than lists culled from addresses or zip codes.

The strategy sounds similar to the one employed by Worth magazine which promises that all their subscribers will have a net worth of at least $2 million. It seems like the reverse of traditional magazine strategy, instead of creating a great magazine and then getting subscribers, these new luxury magazines are creating the desired reader pool first and then creating a magazine to suit them.

Graydon Carter and the editors of Vanity Fair have just published a book of photographs spanning 100 years of the magazine: Vanity Fair: The Portraits, A Century of Iconic Images (Abrams, $65). At 348 pages, the book contains over 100 color and 200 black-and-white photos of personalities ranging from Picasso, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn to Julia Roberts, Giorgio Armani and Brad Pitt, by the world's most famous photographers. An accompanying exhibition will open at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Oct. 26 and will run through the 1st of March.

Back in April we reported that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov (right) was planning to spend $150 million launching a new magazine for snobs. Now the first issue of Snob is about to go on sale with a cover price of $18, but it isn't just a gaudy homage to the oligarch lifestyle as lived by Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich and his compatriots.

"A close look at both the target audience and the contents of Snob show that it doesn't promote the free-spending, bling-drenched stereotype made famous across the world by rich Russians in recent years," the London Independent notes. "While celebrating personal and financial success, it does so in a rather more restrained and worldly way." Too bad - we were kind of hoping for something a little more over-the-top.

Last month we reported that top fashion brands were once again bringing back the supermodels of the 1990s to star in new fall ad campaigns for the likes of Prada, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton.

Vanity Fair has now picked up on the trend, with an eight page story in the new September issue and a photo shoot by Mario Testino (right) featuring Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell.

Though they're all obviously in great shape, Testino somehow makes Seymour look as if she's made entirely of plastic, while the gorgeous Schiffer looks more like a hausfrau than a supermodel. Perhaps the lighting and make-up is to blame. The shoot was originally rumored to be for the magazine's cover, but we can see why they went with Carla Bruni instead.

The mysterious billionaire who just bought the world's most expensive house - the $750 million Villa Leopolda (above) on the French Riviera - is none other than controversial Russian precious metals mogul Mikhail Prokhorov, the AFP reports. Luxist readers may remember Prokhorov as the over-the-top tycoon who announced plans in April to spend $150 million launching a magazine for snobs in Russia, called simply Snob. Prokhorov is ranked as the 24th richest man in the world with a $22 billion fortune. Some earlier reports had erroneously identified the villa's buyer as Roman Abramovich. Last year Prokhorov was briefly detained during an investigation into a suspected prostitution ring at the ritzy ski resort he frequents in the French Alps.

If you are -- or long to be -- part of the NYC social and moneyed scene, Quest is a must-read. Distributed around NYC, seemingly for free (though it has a $5 cover price), this sometimes snooty publication tracks the party scene with pages of pages of photos of dressed-up socialites and tuxedoed men, snapped by editor David Patrick Columbia at fetes and charity events. The magazine occasionally has a feature of some depth but mainly has light articles. For Luxist readers who love our "Estate of the Day" feature, Quest's Web site is great -- it is in magazine format and includes ads. That means you can scan ads featuring home listings in NYC, Connecticut, the Hamptons and so on, plus see ads for high-end jewelry, handbags, clothing, shoes, art galleries, luxury home accessories and cultural events. Click once on the page you want to view to make it bigger. You also can subscribe (tab at top of home page) if you want the hard copy ($36/one year/12 issues or $47.97/two years/24 issues).

The Wall Street Journal reported that Visionaire magazine -- a publication where design, marketing, style, trends and art intersect -- is charging $50,000 for a special Goyard trunk designed for its collectors. The handmade trunk will house the magazine's first 50 issues. This summer, Visionaire also will offer 10 complete sets of its first 50 issues in the Goyard trunks for $150,000. The customized steamer trunks, assembled by hand, will have shelves and insets designed for all 50 issues. Collectors also can buy an empty trunks for €34,500 ($54,000).

From its premiere issue in April 1991 (now up to 54 issues, with each issue typically priced between $150 - $350), Visionaire "challenged notions of what it meant to be an art and fashion publication and was conceived of as a venue for artists such as Mario Testino and Steven Meisel to publish personal work," WSJ stated. It has morphed into something more like a design challenge for its many contributors.

Each issue (which can take between nine months and three years to complete) is typically a mixed-media riff on a theme, posing an ongoing set of challenges to a small crew of designers. For example, White began with the question: How do you publish without using ink? Answer: a combination of Braille, embossing, varnish and paper-cut illustrations. Scent came with perfume capsules, Taste had specially-designed flavor-strips and Sound featured a Mini Cooper toy car that played record albums.

This whole magazines for snobs thing has been much on our minds lately, and yet in all the excitement we seem to have overlooked a major contender in the category: Social Life, a self-described "luxury lifestyle and fashion" periodical based in New York. Social Life came to our attention as we were browsing the week's party photos taken by our friend Patrick McMullan.

It seems the magazine threw itself a party the other night at members only club Soho House to celebrate its latest issue. The event was attended by Anabel Vartanian, dubbed the "Dizzy Diamond Heiress" by the New York Observer; attention-loving Internet celebrity Emily Brill; and someone with the implausible moniker "Princess Charlotte de Broglie" - basically exactly the crowd one would expect at a soirée for something called Social Life.

Intrigued, we looked up the magazine's website, where we came across the following emetic mission statement: "Our readers turn to Social Life to see photos of themselves, their friends, and their families - we feature pictures of exclusive charity events, elegant dinner parties, the exuberance of Polo [sic] and the hottest nights at high-end clubs."

In other words: "We write about People Like Us." Or, more accurately perhaps, "What people who are more like us than they think think People Like Us are like."

On Thursday we told you about the Russian tycoon who's planning to launch a new $150 million magazine for snobs, inventively titled Snob, for "people who are successful and those who want to be successful." We included a photo gallery of some of the titles such as Quest already languishing on newsstands that seem to fulfill that bold mission.

As it turns out, our Russian friend is entering a fairly crowded field. Following some suggestions we received, we now present a further assortment of Snob rags for your viewing pleasure.

Warning: subscribing to the full collection of all ten may result in you're being charged under some sort of arcane sumptuary law. Or it should, anyway.