Cover girl
Encyclopedia
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
features on the front cover of a magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
. She may be a model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
, celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
or entertainer. The term would generally not be used to describe a casual, once-off appearance by a person on the cover of a magazine.
The term first appeared in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
about 1899. A less commonly used antonym is cover boy.
Types of cover girl
Women feature on the cover of the majority of general-interest magazines in the west for both men and women, although there are notable exceptions discussed below.Celebrities feature on the cover of magazines such as Redbook
Redbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
for women, or Gentlemen's Quarterly, Maxim
Maxim (magazine)
Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, sometimes pictured dressed, often pictured scantily dressed but not fully nude....
or Esquire for men. The use of royalty
Royal family
A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
or aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
is linked to the primary objective of recognition.
Some magazines for women feature an unknown model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
that represents the style of the magazine, such as Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
. A parallel to this trend is reflected in men’s magazines like Men's Fitness
Men's Fitness
Men's Fitness is a men's magazine published by American Media, Inc and founded in the United States in 1987. The premier issue featured Michael Pare from the television series The Greatest American Hero....
or Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
.
An intermediate category is the use of a model or supermodel
Supermodel
The term supermodel refers to a highly-paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became prominent in the popular culture of the 1980s. Supermodels usually work for top fashion designers and labels...
who is recognizable because of their exposure in magazines or advertising, a strategy often adopted by ELLE
Elle
Elle may refer to:*Elle, Central African Republic*Elle , a fashion publication*Ellé, a river in France*Elle , a female given name*Elle , a Sri Lankan game similar to baseball*Ælle of Sussex, a Saxon king...
magazine.
In most cases, the objective is to maximize sales and differentiation, while also expressing the brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
values of the title.
In Vietnam the term for a girl found in bars that will go with a client for sexual favours is a cover girl.
Editorial approaches and the market-place
Editorial decisions concerning the positioning of the magazine in the market-place are a key influence on the portrayal of women on the cover.In the 20th century, numerous women's magazines would feature royalty or aristocracy on their covers. In the 1980s and 1990s, Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...
would be a popular cover choice—but usually for weeklies, usually shot by paparazzi
Paparazzi
Paparazzi is an Italian term used to refer to photojournalists who specialize in candid photography of celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people...
, so strictly these were not "cover girl" images. However, there were exceptions where authorized portraits of royalty, such as Diana, Princess Beatrice of York
Princess Beatrice of York
Princess Beatrice of York is the elder daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York...
and Elizabeth II, were taken for Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
and Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
. Despite public complaints about exploitation in the 1990s, publishers have not shied away from using royalty when possible.
Arena
An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...
and Gentlemen's Quarterly rarely featured women on the cover, and where they did they were intended not to be sexually provocative, deliberately distancing the magazine from ‘top shelf’ soft core pornographic magazines. Notably Esquire’s first edition featured a photograph of Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
that was over thirty years old. However, this trend changed during the 1990s, initially with Loaded in the UK, followed by FHM
FHM
FHM, originally published as For Him Magazine, is an international monthly men's lifestyle magazine.- History :The magazine began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Him and changed its title to FHM in 1994 when Emap Consumer Media bought the magazine, although the full For...
. GQ’s UK edition was eventually forced to follow suit.
Later Peter Howarth, UK editor of Esquire famously removed semi-naked women from the covers in a move to once again differentiate the magazine from the competition. The result was a drop in sales but an increase in advertising revenue, as the magazine was able to attract advertisers for more high-end products than before.
The rise of celebrity culture
Celebrity culture
A celebrity culture is the structure that influences those deemed to be celebrities.-Brief history of celebrity culture:Any medium can be viewed as a vehicle for creating a celebrity culture. The famous religious books of the world's faiths are replete with examples of individuals who are well...
in the late 1980s and early 1990s has seen to the appearance of more actresses on magazine covers, especially among fashion magazines. This may be due to a convergence in the mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
between traditional models and actresses: models gained a greater profile in the 1980s, largely through the “supermodels”, and became celebrities in their own right. Actresses, meanwhile, saw appearances in fashion magazines as beneficial to their careers and overall profiles. In addition, numerous models made the move into acting. Finally, there is the issue of sales
Sales
A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....
: a recognizable face will, theoretically, shift more magazines.
The choice of model depends in some part on one's potential recognition in the market-place in which the title is sold. For example, Lucire
Lucire
Lucire is a fashion magazine that originally began on the web in 1997, branching into a monthly print edition in its home country of New Zealand in 2004...
Romania saw its sales and profile increase after using a local cover girl, Monica Gabor, rather than those photographed by the “master edition” in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
While familiarity is a desirable trait for magazine covers—hence the top models and celebrities can charge large amounts for a photographic shoot—there is always the problem of overexposure and dilution of one's image. If, for instance, the majority of covers featured a small handful of celebrities, then the differentiation becomes minimal (e.g. in certain months in 2005, Paris Hilton featured on numerous covers), and there would, in theory, be a tendency to promote lesser known faces.
In the 2000s, some have predicted the demise of the actress or celebrity from fashion magazine covers, citing overexposure and growing cynicism. However, with the success of magazines such as InStyle, which uses celebrity covers, there is little evidence that the predictions are being realized in the middle of the decade.
Image editing
Image editing is common practice for photographs used in advertising and publicity, and cover images are no exception. Image editing is an ongoing process of styling and selection, which invites debate on issues related to the representation of women. Arguably, advertising and cover images can help perpetuate an unattainable ideal of beauty, sometimes aided through methods of retouching to remove skin blemishBlemish
Blemish may refer to:*A minor imperfection. For skin imperfection, see Acne vulgaris*Blemish a music album from David Sylvian released in 2003.*Blemish a Brazilian alternative rock band...
es and shadows under the eyes, smooth out skin texture, widen pupils, or suggest an hourglass figure.
A contrary viewpoint has been put forward by some in the trade, saying that a retouched photograph is actually more representative of the subject. The theory is that when one is in the presence of the person, one does not notice the blemishes. Retouching, therefore, restores the “energy” of the subject.
External links
- CBS News story regarding cover girl images, including the retouching of the Kate Winslet GQ cover
- More coverage of retouching stories
- Web page showing differences between actual photos retouched images such as ones used as cover girl images (mouse over images to see original image)
- http://www.floridamagazine.org/displayarticle.cfm?articlenbr=3440
- http://www.esquire.com/covergallery/coverdetail.html?m=10&y=1933 Esquire magazine's Cover Gallery
- http://www.davidrowan.com/2002/05/evening-standard-magazine-cover-stars.html Evening Standard article
- http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20000823/ai_n11939126 Evening Standard article