The magazine made
international headlines in October 2009 with the news that it would only print
pictures of "real women" after readers complained they could not
identify with ultra-thin professional models.
A spokeswoman for Gruner
+ Jahr publishing house told AFP that a new editor-in-chief planned a thorough
overhaul of the magazine, confirming a report in the daily Sueddeutsche
Zeitung.
"Everything is under
review, including the 'no models' policy," the spokeswoman said, but
declined to provide further details until the new editor, Stephan Schaefer, and
his co-chief settled on a strategy.
The first "no
models" issue hit newsstands in January 2010. It prompted German designer
Karl Lagerfeld to call the policy "absurd" and point out that fashion
was all about "dreams and illusions".
The Sueddeutsche said one
reason for questioning the policy was that lay models were harder for
photographers and stylists to work with, while according to Brigitte the
amateurs received pay "comparable" to that of professionals.
In addition, the
magazine, which was founded in 1954, had to search for women to feature without
the help of modelling agencies, also driving up costs.
And many readers
complained that while the women in the pages of Brigitte may not be models, they
tended to be as thin and pretty as the professionals and the magazine continued
to prominently feature diet tips.
The Sueddeutsche report
cited figures showing that sales had dropped to around 602,000 from about
802,000 in 2002 with little sign of a boost from the "no models"
policy.
____________________________________________________________________
Germany - Top Women's Magazine Trades
Models for "Real" Women
Großansicht des Bildes
mit der Bildunterschrift: Brigitte's first model-free issue hit
newsstands - but can you see the change?
Germany's top-circulation women's magazine, Brigitte, has
started the New Year with a new concept: replacing professional models with real
women. It's a response, they say, to what the modern woman wants.
Brigitte is the fashion and lifestyle bible
for the German everywoman. Women flicking through the January issue will see
just what they were expecting: diet tips, man-advice and models advertising
clothing brands and accessories.
But a closer look reveals a subtle change.
The women wearing the clothes are not professional models, but everyday women.
There is Franca Cuneo, a restaurant owner from Hamburg, Didda Jonsdottir, a 44-year-old singer from Rekjavik,
saleswoman Chiara Cappellini and so on.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes
mit der Bildunterschrift: Stylists
and photographers lend the 'real' models a touch of glamour.
"There's been a change over the last
couple of years where fashion is concerned and what women want from their role
models," Brigitte's joint editor-in-chief, Brigitte Huber, told Deutsche
Welle.
Following in Dove's footsteps
"On the one hand there has been a
change in the way trends work. It isn't the big designers defining the scene
any more, it's people off the street, actresses, politicians. And women have
changed. They don't need unnamed models defining how they are supposed to be
living," Huber said.
Brigitte is not the first to come up with
the concept. In 2004, Dove beauty products launched their own hugely successful
"Campaign for Real Beauty," and they've been using laypeople as
models ever since.
But magazines have been slow to follow
suit. Despite the ongoing debate over media images of superthin models and
their effects on society, glamour - and svelte beauty - sells. Modern society is
still in the thrall of the very thin.
Even this first edition of the much-touted
new Brigitte has a great new diet as its cover story.
Ties between eating disorders, media
Thomas Huber - no relation to the
magazine's editor - is a specialist in eating disorders and a nutritional
therapist.
"Media is often blamed for eating
disorders," Huber told DW, "What we often forget is that they are not
creating an ideal, they are transporting it. Selling it so to speak."
But there should not be a total eclipse of
responsibility he says.
While there is little factual evidence
linking media imagery to eating disorders, he says, one study carried out in Fiji shows the closest-known correlation.
Researchers asked women about their
concepts of beauty and self-perceptions in a period before there was widespread
access to television and advertising, and in a period after.
"Afterwards there was a dramatic
increase in the number of eating disorders. Where previously women had said
thin women looked ill, they now identified with thin as being beautiful."
Huber said.
A step too near?
There are also certain professions that put
people at a higher risk of developing eating disorders, Huber said. Among
them are ballet dancers and models.
Still, there have been criticisms, including
from within Brigitte's readership, that the magazine has not gone far enough.
Far from being revolutionary, some say, the women used in the first issue
are too close to the models used in the past.
Bildunterschrift:
Brigitte Huber defended the choice of
models, however: "There was never any plan to make Brigitte a magazine for
larger women," she said.
Nor does the strategy of changing size
zero-models for normal folk aim to declare war on the fashion industry.
"It is about women who are tired of
looking at images that have nothing to do with them. They want to see a beauty
that is transported because of a person's charisma," said Huber.
The magazine, which sells some 700,000
copies month and enjoys a readership of 3 million an issue, has also stressed
that its choice of real women will not mean an amateur approach to the photo
shoots.
And Huber scoffs at the suggestion this
might have been a marketing ploy to boost falling sales.
"Such a major change is not taken on
the spur of the moment for very short term results. It came after a lot of
research into what our readers wanted and our own questions about the modeling
industry."
Women from all countries, all ages and a
lot of sizes are eligible to apply. And, Huber says, the change to using real
women instead of models is a permanent one.