The Lucky Group, formed last year when Condé Nast spun off Lucky magazine as a joint venture with e-commerce company Beachmint, laid off about a dozen people, sources said.
Lucky President Gillian Gorman Round said the layoffs in editorial amounted to fewer than 10 people, although other sources said the cutbacks were closer to 15.
“We were just doing some readjusting on the editorial side,” Gorman Round said.
She declined to say if the venture was profitable, before adding, “We are very financially robust.”
Staffers were infuriated to learn they got no credit for the years they toiled under the Condé regime and said they were given only two weeks’ severance.
One source said the sale agreement had a six-month grace period that expired Feb. 1. The layoffs happened on Thursday.
A once red-hot lifestyle and fashion shopping magazine, Lucky was an immediate hit with advertisers when it launched in 2000.
Lucky’s fortunes fell with the rise of Web-based retailing, which fulfilled the print magazine’s mission of showcasing fashion and beauty products for young women.
The magazine was one of the first projects that Vogue Editor-in-chief Anna Wintour singled out for special attention after she took on a broader role as Condé’s artistic director in early 2013.
She and then Editor-in-chief Brandon Holley gave the magazine a major redesign in May 2013 that attempted to make it more upscale and aspirational. But the two clashed and Lucky still struggled even after Winter installed protégé Eva Chen as editor in June 2013.
After trying to come up with an e-commerce strategy on its own, Condé said in August that the 14-year-old magazine would be put into a joint venture.