Glamour magazine’s slow redesign continues: the publication is now “unmistakably American, unwavering in its optimism and wide open to the possibilities ahead,” expressed through their new tagline “Live the life, fill it with Glamour.”
AdWeek reports that this part of the rebrand is the work of publisher Connie Anne Phillips and that, like a large part of the rest of Glamour’s refreshed look, it’s about making and spending that paper – regardless of whether you’re the magazine or its readers:
That all-American “optimism” has a very pointed marketing purpose, as Phillips sees it.
“If you walk into a dressing room optimistic, you’re more likely to buy everything you try on,” she explained. “Optimism means there’s something worth shopping for.”
The last few issues have featured notably visually spare covers with AMERICAN stars like Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba. May’s issue included the disclaimer that readers “were into the power-women theme” of Glamour‘s March 75th anniversary issue with Taylor Swift, which seems to have spurred Glamour on: they’ve added a new column called Glamour Women, profiling women like Saudi Arabian Princess/philanthropist Ameerah Al-Taweel and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. They’ve teamed college women up with famous female leaders as mentors. There’s coverage of the winners of “Glamour‘s second annual Glamstarter Awards for female entrepreneurs.” And lest you think Jessica Alba isn’t exactly empowering to women, her profile (entitled “Boss Lady”) is mostly about her work as an entrepreneur.
Even Zosia Mamet’s column for the June issue is about leaning in – or not leaning in: it’s called “No, I Won’t Lean In, Thanks”:
I think, unfortunately, some of our need to succeed professionally is a by-product of a good thing: feminism. Feminism was meant to empower us as women, to build us up for fighting on male-dominated battlefields. It did that, but it did some other things as well. It gave us female role models like Hillary and Oprah and Beyoncé and in the process implied that mogul-hood should be every woman’s goal. We kept the old male ideas of success: power and money. We need new ones!
“The Merriam-Webster dictionary says success is ‘the correct or desired result of an attempt,'” Mamet adds, “But you get to decide what you attempt.”
“We’re not about the red-carpet moment or fantasy,” Phillips told AdWeek. “Our obsession is the occasions that take place in women’s everyday lives.” The occasions to be rich and successful – but only if you want to be.
Images via Glamour