Hearst looks like it is having some trouble filling Glenda Bailey’s old role at Harper’s Bazaar and is now scrambling to name a replacement editor-in-chief before Fashion Week begins in March.

“It’s odd that we haven’t heard anything from them with the fashion shows just around the corner,” said a source at a rival publisher.

Laura Brown, the editor-in-chief of InStyle, is the newest name on the wish list, sources tell Media Ink. She has been approached but so far has given Hearst Magazines president Troy Young and chief content officer Kate Lewis the brush-off.

One source with knowledge of the search said that Brown, an executive editor at Harper’s Bazaar before she was lured to replace Ariel Foxman at InStyle, has not been crossed off the list entirely but is now regarded as “a long shot.”

Two other potential candidates, WSJ Magazine editor Kristina O’Neill and Stella Bugbee, editor-in-chief of New York Magazine fashion site The Cut, have both been in to see the Hearst executives but are not interested. Joyann King, the inside candidate who is running Bazaar’s website, is also still in the running, even as Hearst looks outside.

The job opened up when Bailey said she was going to step down after 19 years and be a consultant to the worldwide HB brand. She was seen as a highly creative print designer with a long list of advertising contacts. On the other hand, she did not have any of the digital expertise that is vital in the current media mix — and was also said to be tough to work for. That might have hastened Hearst to make the retirement decision without a clear replacement in mind.

“She was an absolute nightmare to work for,” said one ex-staffer. “‘The Devil Wears Prada’ writ large.”

An insider at Hearst now says a replacement is expected “in the next month or so.”