But Neiman Marcus raised the stakes in 1996 with the debut of The Book, a magalogue with heavy art-book paper, avant-garde photos and articles like Christopher Buckley's on his night out with two supermodels.

Which is the thinking behind Virgin's latest innovation, the "magalogue" — part magazine, part catalogue, a new concept in direct-to-home selling intended to blow the traditional mail order catalogue out of the water.

One experiment that Texaco Inc. hopes will boost volume is a "magalogue", a new kind of mailing to 200,000..credit-card customers.