Mademoiselle has been around for a while as one of the fashion/lifestyle/relationship magazine choices at the checkout. It has undergone changes from editor to editor, and this time round is no exception. Mandi Norwood has held the title for less than a year now, a transplant from England who was the editor in chief of the U.K. version of the sexy women's mag, Cosmopolitan.
Norwood has really tried to renew interest in this dated and uninspiring tome. She has gone to using fresh-faced models rather than the latest "it" actress (such as Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Charlize Theron) who may be on another magazine that same month. In addition, gone are the stagnant financial advice sections -- that's what "serious" magazines such as Fortune or even Working Woman are for.
In fact, in staying with her "Englishness," Norwood has nicknamed the magazine 'Millie,' its old moniker from the 1960s. And in keeping with the British-way of doing things, Norwood has used a decidedly Helen Fielding [Bridget Jones' Diary] term, 'thoroughly modern Millie,' in describing its core readers -- women who are too mature to read Seventeen but too youthful to really appreciate Elle.
But as smart magazines like Mirabella are folding and other women's magazines are fighting to retain marketshare, what is a girl to do? Norwood has decided to have more personal pieces, to create a more personal magazine. Afterall, this is the magazine for women in their "me" years -- right after college but long before marriage. And for the voyeur in all of us, reading a three-page article on a woman's experience with a botched abortion or an averted date-rape may be what this magazine needs to pull in the readership Norwood and staff crave.
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