Happiness in Magazines

There were lots of reasons why I was looking forward to the launch of The Gentlewoman: it’s the sister mag of the rather fantastic Fantastic Man, the cover girl is woman of the hour Phoebe Philo, its editor is Penny Martin and I just can’t refrain from buying yet another, new magazine. So what’s the verdict? : yes, we likey. It has a nice, clean modernist typeface and I love a cover that’s brave enough to go without the usual overload of straplines. Aimed at a thoughtful, sophisticated woman, each profile has a very specific theme like time management, cycling, housekeeping, which is quirky and throws up lots of interesting insights. I have no idea what Daisy Lowe is doing here though. She seems totally out of place next to profiles of Alice Rawsthorn and Jenny Holzer and I really don’t know need to know what her cleaning product of choice is. The fashion is graphic and grown-up, very Philo’s Celine. In fact one editorial could be the outtakes from the ”headless” Spring 10 campaign. Daniel Riera’s portraits are great, capturing a group of women working in various parts of the fashion industry, caught off guard and in the moment. And I loved the centre section printed on uncoated stock that features a series of ‘references’ – footnotes –additional information on the rest of the mag’s content.

When you pop to RD Franks for The Gentlewoman, keep an eye out for L’Officiel’s tribute to Alexander McQueen with images from all his shows, alongside photos and interviews from the L’Officiel archives. And if you haven’t already done so, pick up a copy of Elle Collections. I usually have no time for collections supplements , always consisting of cobbled together photos that you can see on style.com but Elle totally impressed me with this Spring 10 issue. They’ve presented the collections in such an original way, so not dreary and functional like they are usually. One page is dedicated to designers’ show exits, another to show invites. It’s really detailed and I loved how they used different paper textures throughout. I never thought I would say this about Elle but it is a masterclass in layout and crammed with tons of fashi tidbits: lots of lists like “5 things I’m looking forward to this season and a roundup of fashion week tweets. NOK