Miss Celie

You’ll Always Be BWTF to Me

We‘re making some changes! Beginning with our August issue, burda World of Fashion will be called burda style. We have modernized our image, but you‘ll still find the selection of stylish fashions to sew yourself that you expect from Burda. (emphasis mine)

— July 2009 Burda e-newsletter

Of course. Calling Burda BS also kind of makes sense sometimes too.


33 comments

  1. Well, I worry that they will start to slide too much away from sewing. I don’t care for knitting, crocheting or decoupage.

    In Denmark, it has always been just Burda Fashion Magazine (Burda modemagasin in Danish) – but BWTF will never die here either. 🙂

    I hope you are at peace with your remodeling now that you are engaged in outdoor activities and hair product shopping. 🙂

  3. After struggling all day yesterday with the top bra section of the maxi dress in the August(?) edition, I can assure you that I had several new names in mind for Burda fashions!!!@@## I think I’ll go back to the “big 4” for a while . . .

    • But won’t this be confusing with BurdaStyle where you can download the free and cheaper patterns? I always thought they were connected but still separate things. Isn’t it weird (and not Brand-intelligent) for the more established and international entity to take on the name of the new protege/upstart?

  5. I just got my email from BWOF and I am speechless. I read about the new issue in Sigrid’s blog and wasn’t happy about the changes. Hopefully the patterns they do publish will be wearable.

  6. I noticed this too, why am I not surprised you made mention of it? I did not, however, clue into the ‘BS’ double-entendre (duh, where was I?) and wholeheartedly agree that it may sometimes be very apropos (I still love you Burda-whatever-you-are-this-week!)

  7. Oops, I didn’t mean to reply directly to you Auntie Allyn, this was meant to be a general comment.

    But won’t this be confusing with BurdaStyle where you can download the free and cheaper patterns? I always thought they were connected but still separate things. Isn’t it weird (and not Brand-intelligent) for the more established and international entity to take on the name of the new protege/upstart?

    • The magazine header has the burdastyle.com website now, which I thought was interesting, so I went over – there’s a flash page that comes up and tries to clarify what’s what within the burda family now.

  8. I wonder if they are not aware of the double entendre of the initials? Having been away, I have to go pick up my issue at the Post Office. (DH left it there for me when he did the mail run before work). I hate crafts and buy Burda for fashion. I have issues going back more than 10 years and I have never made any of the crafts, or the recipes when they had those. Is there an address for us all to write our displeasure? Or maybe some of you do like all those crafts.

  9. After letting my subscription to BWOF go for two years, I just resubscribed and my first issue was the August one. All I could think of was WHAT IS WITH MAKING A LAMP OUT OF TEA CUPS? I know they always had some crafty things, but I thought too many pages were devoted to this cup thing. And the fashions were not the greatest either. Isn’t one of the blouses right out of 1980-just a plain button front with a tie?. And accoding to their “fashion forecast” carrot pants are coming back. Ouch!

  10. I just went to Burda Style (the open source sewing website) and it had a notice pop up that said BS and BWOF were merging. I wonder if this is a marketing ploy to get the many BS users to subscribe to BWOF. In the past few months, the designs have had a younger vibe. It will be interesting to see what becomes of it.

  11. They will be BWOF for me too. It took me a while to get from Vogue to BWOF and hope I don’t have to make that transition again. BWOF is so fab and the styles are great. Right now I’m just having an issue with the confounded “nag screen” that keeps coming up on their site – even after you plug in “I don’t want to see this flaming thing again” it still shows up. Not a good start in my book!

  16. Hahaha, Burda WTF – that is too funny! I grew up knowing it as Burda Mode and will probably continue to call it WOF (who knows? Maybe some months I will call it Burda BS…). I don’t adapt well to change. 🙂

  17. Yes.
    Now, let’s take a look at their objective: Increase subscription, I would think.
    Merging the two COULD be a good idea, BUT…
    1. How many of the young Burda Style users make crafts? Maybe they have some calculation based on reviews to the site.
    2. Will those same users actually subscribe to the mag?
    3. If yes; will that number be greater than the probable loss of subscribers like us?
    They must have been crunching numbers (unless they’re complete imbeciles) and decided to take a gamble. I think they should have a used today’s technology and gotten some input from their loyal customers. Collectively, we could give some sound advice and thereby letting them have the cake and eat it too.
    Here’s just one off the top of my head:
    If they selected one or two construction steps in each issue and depicted them clearly with color photos and text, they could then refer back to those issues in the future, thereby making all issues valuable and also help young/new sewers at the same time.
    It is not easy to come up with so many new patterns 12 times a year, and we all have seen they do more or less recycle some of them. But that has not prevented me from subscribing. Too much craft will.

  18. I understand some of the confusion. But lets not forget my Burda now is called Burda Style instead of Burda Moden (the German version), your version is called now Burda Style, instead of BWOF, one name for both. And so if we both try to find the internet address, we both search for the same one and probably just try the name, the same one. Instead of trying to get around the burdamoden and burdafashion and whatever else language specific websiteadresses. No more confusion if BWOF is the same as Burdamoden or not. I wasn’t so sure in the beginning. One name, one webaddress one search term in all languages, neat actually (French should work too, probably Spanish and Italian also).
    By the way the craft parts sometimes get larger, sometimes get smaller. It was by no way more in the last one than some magazines in the past. I have one with pages about pages of bunnies. And the funny recycling stuff isn’t new too. They do this sometimes. It comes in waves.

  19. Funny! We all need to be consistent in what we call them so as to make searching easier. I am happy with BWTF – very unique!

  20. I’m not good with change either, I get antsy every time they change the look of the “at a glance” page. And there were WAY too many crafts in this issue.

    It does seem that the last several issues were aimed toward younger woman (says the 45 year old crone who will NEVER be caught dead wearing carrot pants no matter how fashionable they become), and I’m not sure I’m happy about that.

    Of course, I could retire to the workroom with the past 5 years worth of issues, a few Patrones and my Ottobre woman and never need to see a new pattern again. Like that’s gonna happen.

  21. Haha, I love your play on words for both names, I have often (in the solace of my sewing room!) been heard to refer to it as BWTF, although I would mostly not abbreviate it Lol! I love Burda BS too!

    Thanks for the laugh, I will wait patiently for my August issue – probably about 3 months away! – and by that time I will know from you all if the next 3 issues are going to be as disappointing – cos I am sure you will let us know :-))

  22. LOL! You are so damn funny. As for the name change, in Sweden (as in Denmark)it has always just been called Burda fashion magazine. So the World of Fashion title has always sounded a bit pretentious to me, like what World? And I agree about what other commenters has said about the Burda style vs Burdastyle confusion, it will be interesting to see what happens with that relation in the future.

  23. Hi there…
    So, I received Burda Style in my mailbox today…I have no idea how or why, but I got one. And I don’t know anything about it. It comes with patterns? Patterns of the things in the magazine? I’m a little confused with it. Could you help me out?
    Thanks!
    Chantry

    • Um….you randomly recieved a Burda magazine? Did you recently move? Could it have been for someone else? These are not super cheap magazines that tend to just show up in people’s mail, nor are they all over the place.

      If you are lucky enough to have somehow been the beneficiary of a free Burda magazine, well, wow! Lucky you! Yes, those are patterns in the magazine, of many of the garments featured in it. The numbers given in the captions on the photospread pages correspond with the newsprint section in the middle. If you want to sew up one of the garments, find it in the newsprint section, which will tell you what page of the pattern insert it’s on, what colour lines, and what sizes. You trace out the pattern and add seam allowances and hem(s). And away you go! Although, if you’re new to sewing both this procedure and the minimal sewing instructions given may feel a bit over your head.

      • Thank you! I’m a pretty experienced sewer…so I should be good. I really have no idea how I got it….there is a possibility I ordered and just forgot…but I don’t think so. How weird is that? Thank you for the helpful info.

  24. I really like the August 2009 issue. There are several things I want to make right away. I am so glad that the children’s patterns go up to size 140 now.

    I don’t like the nag screen that appears over and over again, even after I click don’t show me this again. It was enough to make me leave their website.

    I am taking a wait and see attitude. Birgitte has a good point. They are probably studying demographics and page views very carefully and trying to figure out how they can increase their revenue.

    I worry about the tyranny of page views. Will they steer their selection towards the most pageviews? I may not want to make the things that everyone else looks at. You will notice that most of the comments on BS are *not* by people who have sewn the pattern.

    I’d like to see a merger of print and electronic media. Knitting magazines send readers to their websites to download knitting charts that are too large to print easily. Perhaps Burda can use their website to do in-depth color tutorials (or even video) of construction steps. In the August issue, several jackets and skirts had in-seam welt pockets. Why not demonstrate that in technique detail?

  25. My August Burda came yesterday, and it seemed OK–I didn’t notice any alarming changes at any rate. The craft projects crack me up, though. Did anyone catch the jumbled up dishware cunningly glued together with spilled white paint?

  27. Now that I’ve had a chance to look through it, what I object to more than the bad crafts, and they are pretty tacky, is that there are many more retreads of recent patterns. Yes, they have always done this, but this issue seems more packed with them.
    The other issue, less than it seems younger than some issues, it also seems to cater to fewer body types. I have a short neck and large bust so all the high necked items just won’t work for me.
    I want better pictures of the clothing. They are trying to appeal to new readers, but I think that a lot of people are put off by not being able to see the clothing better. I do rely on the technical drawings but when the instructions are obtuse, I’d love to be able to really see the clothing to get a better idea of how they are put together. BWTF can often be case.

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