Do you think fashion magazines have as much power as they used to?

[Niftythrifter]

I used to be an avid fashion magazine buyer but now hardly buy them and when I do they get flicked through rather than poured over. They are pretty expensive for what they are and they don’t, as far as I can tell, offer many free gifts these days which would tempt me to buy them ( can anyone remember the days of Clinique freebies and Benefit freebies?).

Sorry but don't get me started on fashion magazines covering 'real world issues'. I can read about them anytime. If I open a fashion magazine, be it printed or digital, it's because I want to read about clothes. Funny how football or music or motoring writers don't seem to feel this need.

I was thinking more generic women’s magazine like Red and Glamour. We don’t all want to read the same stuff therefore I don’t but those magazines anymore because they don’t cater to what I want. You obviously want something different- live and let live.

I really love your body positivity, I often try clothes on and think of you. I'm moving away from my 'rules' but it is difficult after so many years. If I love something I'll wear it. I still stick to my colour palette though as I've learnt that I never reach for clothes that aren't my usual shades as they don't match anything else I own and I just don't look right in them.
As for magazines, I loved them. Especially the free Benefit makeup with Glamour and the big skincare freebies with Red. Grazia, Looks, Glamour and Hello fashion and beauty were my favourites. I also love make up brochures like Avon and the Benefit booklet.

I have spotted a magazine with a freebie today when exiting M and S! I think it’s Harper’s Bazaare that currently have one.

I'm guessing it's a combination of magazines and online influences and more competition for readers

I also remember a few years back getting the marine cream. I can't remember the brand name. It was lovely though. My gift ever was a Benefit palette with eyeshadow and a cream blusher inside. It was with Glamour magazine. In a few colour combinations. I'd go to different news agents to get them all. That must've been about 2004/5.

*best gift

Nope.

It's all tiktok influencers who have probably never looked at a magazine

It’s a shame really but I don’t really pay much notice of influencers and all the jazz in terms of buying stuff because they say it’s good and all that.

Googled In Style. I hadn't even noticed it stopped being printed in 2017.

If you are in the UK and a member of a library, you get free access to pressreader. Same as readly. Did I say free?

I still love a glossy. They're on the wane though.

I remember being sick at home with the mumps when I was about 11 and my mum's friend dropping over a pile of Vogues, Elles and Marie Claires for me to read . My mum would never have dreamt of buying a fashion magazine so this was a whole new world to me. I vividly remember coveting a pair of black Versace cropped trousers with gold tasseling on the hem. This would have been around 1989.

And I love the smell of a magazine, the ink mingled with the perfume samples. Will never flick past a perfume sample without rubbing it on my wrist.

I will buy Vogue at the airport and that's about it, so once or twice a year. Fashion magazines used to be weekly/fortnightly/monthly depending on their rotation and loved Grazia.
Nowadays I mostly get my style ideas from social media or Pinterest.

I used to like Grazia but stopped buying it about a decade ago after its 67th 'Is Jennifer Aniston Truly Over Brad?' cover story.

I used to love Red. Last time i bought it was three months ago but it feels too young for me now im approaching 50 . My main one is Woman and Home.

Does anyone else remember Eve. I loved that. Before that it was New Woman

No, not at all.

Their current model can’t compete with online content - weekly or monthly reporting doesn’t cut it as much with those who do want to keep up with things.

They are 80% or more ads and endorsements. The obvious ad pages, but so many of the products they recommend are from favours/ pleasing their ad sponsors. The ads themselves are emaciated teenagers. I don’t want to look like them, and I can’t achieve the skin of a 23 year old. I want older models, elegant or whatever - aspirational to me needs to be somewhat relatable.

The articles rely on old tropes. Same same same diet advice, PR piece on a sleb, advice then about “love your body” (juxtaposed with diet advice and ads featuring above-mentioned emaciated teenagers), travel pieces to some unknown spa in Utah I’m never doing (look great… long haul flights? Really?), a shoddy piece about empowering yourself by checking your financial health and pension (1 page), endless shite about kook psychology that should not be promoted.

The same people run all of these mags, pretty much. Most Vogue girls, until recently, all seemed to have attended the same two or three schools. Anna Wintour just. won’t. bugger. off.

What I ask of a magazine is to find new (smaller scale) fashion labels, some beauty tips. I get that now from Instagram where lots of people essentially have their own mini-magazine. I like it, it’s more varied (they can stay more true to their different aesthetics) and you can cut through the crap and unfollow if one does too many endorsements. There’s something for everyone - you can go as niche as you like.

Probably never buying a fashion magazine again!

“I think body acceptance and positivity has been a positive to come out of the whole thing in that people are seeing what clothes look like on different body types and see how trends etc can be reinterpreted for different body shapes rather than one prevailing body type and also the fact that people are happy with their bodies as opposed to needing to succumb to diets etc to be able tp wear certain trends etc”.

I agree OP. With street fashion, and sm, fashion has become a lot more accessible to people of different body shapes. And in many cases much more fun and individual if you have the energy and imagination and time. I don’t. But I love looking at others who do.

I don’t buy the mags anymore, (but in Australia most of them are gone now anyway.) I was in love with fashion from when I was 16. Worked in the fashion industry for a while straight out of School. Sunday mornings I’d get up, go buy a stack of fashion mags and go to a local Hungarian cafe and have breakfast and coffee while starting to read them. It was a highlight of my week.

I still love fashion and looking but lost the energy needed.

@Backstreetsbackalrightdadada I did my usually @ someone but your name was too long for me to remember. 🙂

You wrote a Very good summation of current fashion mags - what is left of them.

I used to buy them all - Eve and She were my favourites. I used to love the thick glossy paper. Now the magazines are thin and cheap looking but they still want £7 for one. That's not happening. I used to do the cheap subscriptions but they are all such utter shite these days, with their recycled articles that I just cba anymore.
If someone made a proper women's glossy mag again, I would buy it.

Totally agree with IAO. Not paying for what’s on offer now. Give me glossy pages, good articles, top journalists, great content. I’ll buy it.

In the heyday of the glossy mag I went hand luggage only to Thailand for a month and ( having looked in advance) picked up magazines with make up, skincare, a bikini, a book and flip flops at the airport, so not only did I have stuff to read on the flight, but significantly upped my carry on capacity.

Oh to be that young and low maintenance again!

These days I flick through Hello and Red at the hairdressers and that's about it.

@Floisme Totally agree with your last post re wanting to read about fashion. I was an avid reader and subscriber in the late 80s and through the 90s of Vogue and Elle, even though I certainly didn't have the designer budget to match. They had some great writers who never treated it as frivolous.

I wanted serious articles about trends in fashion and beauty and about the designers. I used to devour them from cover to cover. Once the 'celebs' took over they became less interesting because I didn't want to read about the latest film/tv series/whatever with a dollop of what they were wearing attached.

Never look at them now and I'm not interested in lifestyle mags. I might pick up Gardeners World once in a while though.

I used to love them but they're all full of shit now and hideously overpriced.
The only one I still read is Tatler, as I love to see how the othe half live, but I usually get it on subscription at discount with a free gift

I used to read loads, now the only fashion journalism I read is what’s in the Times supplements. And that’s such a load of predictable, vacuous drivel that you need only bother with half of each article.
I don’t know whether they have no influence. The commands doled out by the Times hacks are exactly the ones you read from the snarkiest posters here. So either the Times fashion team are all mumsnetters, or at least a couple of people still take them as gospel.