Breaking: Brandon Holley Has Been Named Editor of Lucky

Nice bomb to drop the day before Fashion Week.

Former ElleGIRL and Jane editor-in-chief Brandon Holley has been named editor of Lucky. She will succeed Kim France, reports WWD.

Most recently, Holley was content director at Yahoo! Shine, the portal’s channel for women.

Holley is a good fit for Lucky, which houses plenty of former Jane and Sassy staffers, including creative director Andrea Linett. While the copy is minimal and fairly sterile, the market pages and designer profiles are the dream of a certain type of editor. The clothes, products, and accessories–from brands like Mayle and Lyell to Rebecca Minkoff–are things these women would actually wear. And Holley fits into that mold–slightly indie, but not snobby.

However, she does have a big challenge ahead of her. Despite being what we’d assume is an advertiser’s dream–a magazine about shopping–Lucky has struggled to increase numbers over the last few years. When its sister magazine, the shelter title Domino, folded in early 2009–some feared the same would happen to Lucky.

Conde Nast said they closed Jane because it was hard to pitch to advertisers. It wasn’t a luxury title like W. It’s not Vogue. And it’s not mass like Glamour or Self. Smart, quirky content is a difficult pitch.

In an odd way, Lucky struggles with the same thing. Maybe Holley’s learned from what happened at Jane, and from those lessons will come her new strategy. What’s more, she now has the web experience that Lucky desperately needs. We wish her the best of luck and can’t wait to see the changes she makes at Lucky.