After 11 years at Vogue, most recently serving as the mag’s senior accessories editor, Filipa Fino is leaving the glossy world behind for digital, or, as she describes it, ‘the wild wild west.’ While the circumstances surrounding Fino’s departure from Vogue last June made headlines for the wrong reasons (was she fired? WWD insinuated there was “inappropriate behavior” while Fino denied any rumors of her firing to Page Six), her newest venture, an online mag devoted to accessories, should eclipse that bad buzz. Fino is one of the first, as she would say ‘old-school,’ glossy vets (from Vogue no less) to break off to compete with blogs and fashion sites run by relative newbies. And that makes us sit up straight and take notice.

Fino File will be a monthly online magazine with an e-commerce component that is set to launch before the fall shows in February. There will also be a weekly newsletter of sorts (it’s in the works) emailed out to subscribers featuring shopping tips and things that catch Fino’s eye. But she’s releasing a holiday gift guide on November 28 as a teaser of what’s to come–it will feature wish lists from Tory Burch, Narciso Rodriguez and Prabal Gurung as well as Fino’s own expertly curated gift picks. We got on the phone with Fino who was refreshingly candid about why she decided to make the jump to digital and why Vogue can’t keep up.

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