Similar to The Lady’s Magazine 1770-1847 it was a book to instruct and entertain the upper classes. Although called magazines, these were in book format, expensive to produce and buy; purely for those who could and had the luxury of time to read for leisure.
It crossed my mind that the readers of these magazines would be shocked know these would one day stand alongside the almost naked cover girls and ‘sex!’ headlines gracing Cosmopolitan.
The captions for each magazine are concise and informative. Spare Rib, the feminist title, began as an underground magazine in the 1970’s as an alternative to the commercial magazine culture. Feminist in values, this magazine stood for equality, lifestyle choice and freedom from outdated gender roles in a male dominated industry. At its height it had a readership of between 20, 000 and 30, 000 but folded in 1993.
Also in the line-up are Claire Rayner, Sue O’ Sullivan, Linda Kelsey, Louise Chunn and Ashant Omkar. Sadly missing is Oscar Wilde who contributed to, edited and was known to have loved women’s magazines.
The industry had unstable beginnings, the first ever woman’s magazine The Woman’s Mercury launched in 1693 but soon folded and it almost another century before the industry picked up.
Now in the biggest period of social flux history, the woman’s magazine has had to respond to cultural changes in order to survive.
This was done through segmentation. Increasingly in the 20th century women were earning and educated. As a result magazines started to publish with different readers in mind.
This also meant advertisers could pay to use pages to advertise their product to their ideal audience. By the 1950’s the industry was at its peak and making a vast profit. 5 out 6 women were thought to read at least one magazine a week.
Advertising became a huge and lucrative aspect of the industry as it is to this day despite various commissions that have found that excessive advertising ‘obstructed content’. Alternative and cutting edge magazines such as Nova and Spare Rib found it impossible to survive in a distribution system so geared towards making money.
With increasing competition, marketing teams have to find new ways to attract custom. The exhibition looks at the effect of ‘free gift warfare’ on the industry and showcases free gifts collected over the period of a year.
The exhibition shows that specific cover models are of crucial and surprising importance in the sales stakes and yes, sex sells. It would seem we certainly do judge a magazine by its cover.
The section on magazine content covers the controversy of the Suffrage papers to the enduring pages relating to domesticity, celebrity, fashion and personal issues. The exhibition does mention the lack of political articles in modern magazines but as with other difficult questions raised it doesn’t probe why this is case.
Although, in a specially commissioned film by Annis Joslin, contemporary magazine readers talk about their personal relationship with women's magazines and this is one of the points returned to. It becomes apparent that magazines are now used as glossy escapism. That this can be addictive is also highlighted by one interviewee.
The film runs on loop in a clinical white waiting room with a selection of magazines on a rack for your perusal.
There is also an interactive version of the quiz, ‘How Liberated are You?’ which originally ran in a 1978 edition of Cosmopolitan. This allows you to compare your answers to the most popular answers when the quiz was first published. In 1978, 50% of women said that they would be embarrassed to have male employees working below them. It was surprising that the percentage for today’s women was not much lower.
This is a varied, colourful and nicely curated exhibition that looks at the multifaceted nature of Women’s magazines: ‘Between the Covers’ has something for everyone.
