Article – Critical ApproachesHannah Sewell

Company Magazine –In every fashion magazine there are similar aspects, this causes competition because it allows each fashion editor to pick up on these similar ideas and to create brand new ideas that would encourage the audience to buy a magazine. The way women are presented in Elle and Vogue are sophisticated, smart, strong independent women, this sends a message to other magazines saying you should respect women and there ideas. Whilst male magazines only use women as an object by making them wear less clothes and making them do a sexy pose. In the magazine Company, they portray women as quite excitable with big smiles on there faces, this portrays them as being free, working and excitable. The readers will pick up these vibes and want to buy it as fashion is a creative and unique subject to work on. The magazine dedicates there magazine to young working women, by showing models being free then it encourages the reader to do so too. This is a good thing because it brings out the best in women, with their personality and clothing. In Company magazine you never see a person in a negative light, instead they are mostly inside the magazine for their creative blogs and fashion ideas, and they would be shown negatively because it doesn’t show of the high street clothing or the people very well. Company get’s involved in a lot of social activities, they use Instagram, Facebook and blogging to talk about there new fashion ideas and group work, because of the fact they are all massive fans of social media they have an App for Smartphones and Ipads etc. Compared to Vogue and ELLE they don’t talk about much social issues this is because they are mostly a blog and high street magazine. The only social issue they would talk about is there front cover Celebrity which is shown here as Alexa Chung. The magazine would talk about her role in fashion and how popular she has become, this would put her in a positive group as the target audience will read about her and understand what it’s like to be a strong women in the fashion industry. The main groups in this magazine is gender and age, the women shown are very colourful, full of personality and all of a unique sense about them, they have a range of girls from different shapes and sizes which encourages the audience to wear amazing clothes whatever your size. This represents them as being strong, individual women with a gender that is willing to work around fashion trends and to move forward in there careers which is always mentioned in Company magazine. The three magazines have definitely improved in there own way for example, Company has really improved on the cover. For example the model looks quite old on the older version, this would put of readers because they want a person to look young and fresh so that it reflects on them in the same way. The way in which the models are different, on the right the model is much curvier, whilst on the left the model is younger, successful and full of life. The only issue with this is that it’s stopping curvier women from being free, instead they are showing skinny, pale and not much life which gives out the wrong message, it’s telling people that they have to look dull to be better than everyone else. It does help to have an exciting front cover because that’s the sale; the more inventive it is the more the reader wants to buy it. Models in fashion can be very skinny which can make young girls feel vulnerable and to think they are fat in themselves. By telling people to do different diets it can be quite dangerous because it encourages more and more people to lose weight. This is a huge negative that did occur in the past but now they are introducing healthier models, even though there are still skinny models, they seem to show better sized women. On the cover they haven’t changed the San Serif title because it’s quite original, easy to read and has been going like this for years. Company is based on women and there lifestyle in fashion, from blogs to how they’ve progressed in the industry. The prices shown in the magazines are high street standard which means it’s affordable and the young audience can get involved and pick out clothes so that they can go into a shop and buy it. Company has changed the most because I believe there old copies were just the same as ELLE and Vogue, this is a negative thing because you don’t want to copy other magazines. Instead they completely changed the way they involved models, the amount of text on each page and the colours used. There’s more imagery and less writing. Seeing different people in fashionable outfits excites you and inspires you to dress just like that. The contrasts in language in each magazine can be quite different, it can be a negative thing because if somebody finds it difficult to read then it can only reach a certain age group. In Company magazine they do not have a mixture of age groups throughout the magazine, they only have men and women from 20-30, they involve men within the magazine because they are a key element in fashion ideas and they are not blogging there own fashion crazes, this is good for the magazine as it highlights what men think of women in clothing and it helps them to try and look good around the opposite sex. They don’t have anyone above 30+ really because there isn’t a fashion market that really highlights that age group, as this magazine is based on high street fashion it’s normally for the younger generation and not the older generation. They have done this for the younger generation as well from 16 and below you do not see any information on children, this means it’s based for business women that are creative and all in fashion or business work.The pictures shown in Company are mostly full bodied pictures, this is to show the clothes clearly which helps the audience to know which ones they would like to buy in the future. They also do head shots and pictures of clothes on there own, by doing a variety of images it always makes each page exciting to look at and different. The articles in company magazine are mostly, make-up, new fashion trends and the celebrity on the cover, this is a female based magazine due to the articles being only of female clothing and objects. The advertisements shown are Accessorize, Topshop, River Island etc., these are all High Street shops that there target audience would go to (median 26 years). These advertisements work perfectly with the magazine because the products shown within the magazines are from those shops. They do add expensive designers to compare the high street to the high fashion, this tells the audience that they can buy products that looks like proper designer products. The style within the Company has a mixture of things, they have different fonts on there front cover and pictures of clothing on there own, they always have a main colour theme for there covers which gives them a certain feel towards the audience. The clothes that the models wear within the magazines are street style with patterned trousers and denim jackets, this is simple clothes that anyone can wear for any occasion.

Vogue and ElleVogue has been the mostly popular fashion magazine since 1909, it’s and grown and grown through high fashion which automatically makes it different from company magazine. Due to it’s main theme of having high fashion there are many different elements that they use instead of having brightly coloured clothes and objects. Elle is easy to understand, it has clear vocabulary that ages 16+ can understand, this can help broader an audience. They use quotations to add mystery to the story and it can be linked to there success and stories just like Company. Vogue is quite difficult to understand due to it’s high quality vocab, this links well with the target audience because it shows that they are well educated and Upper class. They don’t do quotations, instead they use bold font which is neater and probably more sophisticated and modern. “My look is like a cocktail, I’m sophisticated like the French, but don’t care like the English” this is a quote in a Vogue article, this tell the reader how she thinks about her look and how to encourage you to unique in your own right. This links with ethnicity, it talks about different cultures and how each country has there own fashion aspects, by encouraging people from different backgrounds, it brings people together in a community, educating further on how to except different religions and culture. Vogue does bring a lot of people together in there magazine for example they show different men and women from different work places at events which shows a community, this invites readers as they can read about them and recognise those different people that are together. They also show children for example showing rich celebrity parents with there new babies and what they wear. An example of this would be Alexander Wang’s child, she is only 3 and wears the most extravagant clothing that would be for a 20 year old. They show a mixture of ages because it shows different elements of clothing and how they change over time. They always show actors/designers in there 70’s that go to big parties, this makes them look outgoing but also classy even if they are getting old. This matches to a wider audience. Vogue has copied ELLE in a lot of ways, mostly the layout. People want fun clear layouts that they can look at in an easier way. By doing this Vogue has brought new customers as it steals the ideas of ELLE but produces a neater creative copy in Vogue. For Company it’s quite easy as they can find out what the trends are, and then they can take pictures of each piece of clothing in different high-street shops and then involve it in the magazine. I believe they would have done this because of the fact that women like variety, they like colours and new trends. By completely changing the layout it means women have the freedom to pick different clothing that they like (at affordable prices) and read articles that will fit their needs. Company is fantastic for this because now they show clothes and accessories at an affordable price, the amount of magazines like Elle and Vogue that I’ve read have tops for £1,000 from Fendi (fashion designer) whilst Company have ‘Topshop’ tops for £36 which is affordable. It’s important for women to see better offers because it means they can enjoy looking at clothes at a significantly smaller price. The Fashion Editor of ‘Cosmopolitan Magazine’ called Louise Court said “my favourite article had to be ‘I use the F word do you?’ which is about feminism and trying to reclaim feminism” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikcMi2CLbsc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUip6B-gK96ZghqZUbBvZB8A I thought this was very important on the ethnicity and genre side of things because she wanted to bring out feminism and how she thinks women should be treated the same way as men in the work place. This is an important article because it’s about what women talk about and how it might affect them when reading an article like this. Louise was saying how women don’t feel comfortable with the feminism word because they think “that is doesn’t apply to them” said by editor. She also said “well do you think your equal to men and they say yes, which means there feminist, it’s that simple” this really gives character to women. The editor-in-chief of American Vogue Anna Wintour says in an interview that “talking to different designers, it feels that they are optimistic and thrilled of the idea of change and withdraw from Iraque. That will be reflected on the runways in next September” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEkmKyBzDOE this tells you that Anna Wintour also has gathered research on what fashion will be like and how women will connect to it through politics and wars etc. She believes that ethnicity and fashion can relate in those terms. These are the kind of articles that are shown within Vogue, like wars, feminism, strong views that people like to read.Women feel inspired when they see successful supermodels walking down the runway with ‘Marc Jacobs’ on or ‘Burberry’, they feel that they can dress like that and live a sophisticated life like these editors or models. This is why anorexia is such a problem with female readers as they think that they should be skinny because the editors of the magazine are choosing skinny people. That is such a huge problem, this is why magazines like Company have introduced curvy people into their magazine, and they take street pictures of girls just in the normal high-street clothing. This helps to reduce ethnicity problems but also helps the target audience to feel that they can look good whatever they wear. This picture below shows how women in Company magazine are chosen whatever shape, size and age. They have changed since the 2000 cover by adding text, it’s set out in three tiers and looks much smarter and interesting compared to a plain cover with only one heading! Most fashion magazines use this method because people want to know what’s involved in the magazine before buying it. It’s looks modern and much neater than other magazines, when you’re a subscriber you get a magazine with just the image and title, this gives it an edge whilst other copies have to text on to bring in the audience. The typical stereotypes in Vogue are tall, skinny, pale models that just stand there before a fashion show, they always show back stage footage as it entices the audience and gives them a feel for fashion life. Having plain models like look similar makes it very stereotypical for the audience to see. What’s good about Vogue is there is a mixture of groups from all ages that is accepted within the magazine, the only group that isn’t there is a group of children from 0-10, the only cases where there would be ones is if they show a fashion family. The images and layout used is practically identical to ELLE magazine, they use the same font practically throughout but have quirky fonts now and then, the images are a mixture and really gives variety to the magazine which is just like Company magazine. The advertisement throughout this magazine is all high end fashion like Burberry, Mulberry, Gucci etc., these are all expensive makes that older more upper class people will afford. This makes the magazine look more sophisticated, ELLE does just the same by having all there advertisements at the front of the magazine, this gives of the atmosphere before reading any articles. The culture between Vogue and ELLE are very similar as well, they always show smart suits and nude heals that look like Katie Middleton's, her style is practically what Vogue shows on every issue. ELLE does the same but they are more relaxed with there clothing which shows that ELLE’s target audience is well educated but have less care about what they wear on a daily basis, more creative than Vogue. Vogue normally has 250 pages when it is a big issue, on a normal magazine issue it would be lower, whilst ELLE is 260 page when it’s a larger issue. They are very similar and work well through competition.

All Three Magazines

These three magazines are very similar because they are all fashion magazines, one of the main sections that is involved within a magazine is advertisements, this is normally a image with the company name across it to show the types of clothing that they have produced in there fashion line. With each advertisement, the company creates a piece of art or a particular theme throughout with one or more models involved, this tells the audience that there clothing is shown through a story, it can either be emotional (through use of men and women models) or an image of a elegant women in a woods. There is always a sense of atmosphere when it comes to the advertisements so that when you look through a fashion magazine you feel that you look at different art and stories for the audience, this tells people that the target audience like’s emotion and they like looking at art that would effect them. In all fashion magazines there are at least 30 pages that are just fashion advertisement alone, which will help to increase their profit amount every month. Depending what kind of magazine it is like Company they will have High-street fashion ads e.g. Topshop and H&M whilst Vogue and ELLE would have High-end companies like Fendi and Gucci etc. After the advertisement section they will have a contents page that talks about each subject on every page, on some of the pages they do a mixture of little articles that link into one large subject, for example in the December issue of ELLE they have a film page where they talk about Tom Hiddleston, The hunger games and new and upcoming films. This shows that the audience like’s a variety of upcoming and present events that are happening through films and actors. Each magazine has a way of doing this as it can either be a two page spread of an article that talks about music, film or political issues. In the contents page they will have a main name for each page so that it’s clear and easy to find when looking at the number page at the side of each section, contents is important for the magazine as it helps to separate different photo-shoots to articles, it keeps it organised and clean. From each contents the fashion magazine will have a page where the editor is talking about what is coming up in this monthly magazine, why they have chosen a main celebrity for there cover and how fashion is evolving into something new. This helps the audience to connect with the editor and seeing what her views are like on certain subject so you can think and understand where she is coming from, whether it’s her opinion on a celebrities personality or London Fashion Week. These three magazines always have an image of the editor and then a signature just to show that they have signed and produced it themselves, this is clear when you look at the editors page after the contents. What I’ve find out of these three magazines is that they either use models or celebrities for there front covers, they don’t use anyone else. This just shows that if they put a well known face on there magazines then it means the audience will want to read and find out about there lives or essentially be like them. Celebrities are known to be quite truthful about there opinions and feelings so for you to read it yourself you can understand the character and grow to like them. This tells the audience that the celebrity/ model that the magazine has chosen must be someone that the target audience would recognise, this would link to there market research and strategy. If they chose someone e.g. Jeremy Paxman then the audience wouldn’t connect or feel would know that person through fashion. Speaking of men I have also found that they never use a male for the front cover of there magazines, this tells me that it must be a female based magazine. They use females as they are strong and role models for the people that are reading that magazine, someone to inspire to be like also etc. By using a male person make the magazine look masculine and takes away the meaning of the magazine in the first place. When choosing a female representative of the cover, the fashion magazines make a big deal about the layout of the images and what they have to look like on the cover and within the magazine. They also mention that one person throughout the magazine as it constantly repeats that person’s name which means they always remember the cover lady. For example if it was Katy Perry, (for ELLE USA) they would have a four page spread explaining about her career and where she is going next in her life. They also talk about her relationships, what she thinks of fashion and how she get’s involved in it. Katy Perry is known to go to a lot of fashion shows like Chanel and Victoria Secret’s, this tells the audience that she is interested in fashion and then the audience will recognise her for her music but also the fashion shows. They make sure that through the four page spread of a cover women, they have to show a photo shoot throughout so that it goes with the cover shoot but also there emotion has to link with what’s been written. In the photo shoot (for the September ELLE monthly issue) she wore dark make-up purple hair, she had a couple of black and white images. This gave a sense that she had anger or wanted to express an emotion within her which really came out through the text. This further tells me that the fashion readers like emotion and want to see it expressed by celebrities or models. All of the fashion magazines have there name title at the top of the cover page, this has never changed throughout time e.g. the examples of the old version of the three magazines to the new, you can see that the layouts are still practically the same. The use of San Serif and Serif really contrasts and work well to get a bold statement out there, the fact that they are all in a large font is telling the audience that this is a different magazine to the other. I also found that through competition these magazines have copied and made there main cover lady either in front or behind the name title, this gives the effect that the magazine has depth, by being in front of the title but behind the cover lines makes the magazine look thicker and deeper which gives more attention to the cover girl. Finally after have the contents, celebrity pages, film and music pages they move on to longer articles and longer photo-shoots. The last few articles in a fashion magazine is always on beauty, this involves make-up and diet requirements that you might want for the future seasons, ‘how to slim down to summer’ titles like that would help to encourage women to read about there health and how to improve there bodies constantly. This tells me that the target audience for these magazines are body conscious, they are vulnerable and want to find out facts that will help them quickly. This is the down fall for these magazines because it does increase anorexia due to photo-shopped models and thin models that are supposedly trying to represent how women should be, this brainwashes the target audience into thinking negative ideas about there looks. Fashion magazines are known for this but they are also known for representing successful women in there selected businesses, this shows that the target market will either look at it in a negative way of positive way.

Each Section of a Fashion Magazine

Advertisements Contents Page Articles

Clothes Pages

Photo shoots