Editor Puts Her Stamp on Marie Claire

The new editor in chief of Marie Claire, Joanna Coles, shares more than just her British heritage with noted editor Tina Brown. Like Ms. Brown, Ms. Coles also has a talent for creating buzz. And then, of course, there’s that cropped blonde haircut.“I was away on vacation and only found out on the day I got back that I had an interview with Cathie Black,” Ms. Coles recalled. Ms. Black is the president of Hearst Magazines, which, with Marie Claire Album of Paris, owns Marie Claire. “So I rushed out to have my hair done, and then went over to her office. But there was a mix-up and they told me she was just about to leave for the airport to go to Europe for a week on business. I knew I had to see her. After all, I had had my hair done! I went to her apartment and just climbed into the car with her.”On the way to the airport, Ms. Coles, most recently the executive editor of More magazine, managed to convince Ms. Black that, despite her lack of beauty or fashion experience, she had the journalistic skill to give the magazine a needed makeover.In the last few months, that’s exactly what Ms. Coles has done. Marie Claire’s September issue, the first one that bears her stamp, certainly has created its share of press attention. Most notably, Ms. Coles, in a special note to readers, criticized pop singer Ashlee Simpson, who was the cover girl of Marie Claire’s July issue. In the magazine, Ms. Simpson emphasized self-respect. “Everyone is made differently and that makes us beautiful and unique,” she said. Just after the issue hit the stands, it was reported that Ms. Simpson had a nose job.Outraged Marie Claire readers complained in droves. “We received over a thousand letters,” Ms. Coles said. She let the readers “vent” in the September letter column, even publishing letters that cited the magazine’s own “cluelessness.” And Ms. Coles joined in, declaring she was “dazed, confused and disappointed,” too.Marie Claire’s September cover also features a redesign with black backgrounds and a much more sophisticated look than recent issues, and showcases Maggie Gyllenhaal, a serious, offbeat actress.Ms. Coles also managed to put together a unique group of models for the issue’s big fall fashion spread. In a section entitled “MC Does DC,” Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama, plus Rudy and Judy Guiliani, and a pack of Beltway media and lobbying types, pose in all-American designer clothes. The section is described as “Marie Claire’s greatest fashion coup,” and advises readers:”Want to be electable? Look delectable!”How did she manage to pull it off? “I just made it clear — very clear — that I wanted that story,” she said. “You know, when British journalists want a story, they can make it happen.”Indeed, Ms. Coles, who is 44 and has lived in New York for nearly nine years, should know. She has worked as a correspondent for both the London Times and the Guardian, served as executive editor of New York magazine, and has a series of journalistic scoops to her credit. While at the Guardian, she scored the paper’s first interview with O.J. Simpson following his “Not Guilty” verdict. At New York, she found John Kerry’s intern, who turned out to be the non-Monica of the 2004 campaign, and she arranged an interview with former Conde Nast publisher Ron Galotti, who left New York to become a Vermont farmer. “Joanna is wildly connected in New York media circles,” the editor in chief of Tango magazine, who worked with Ms. Coles at More, Hilary Black, said. “She is always bursting with topical ideas.”Naturally, many of those ideas have taken root at Marie Claire. Since its launch in America in 1994, it has been known for its clever ideas, European attitude, and features about women around the world. The current issue contains articles about a female journalist in Baghdad, an anthropologist in Africa, a couple of chic abaya-wearing fashionistas in Dubai, and participants in a beauty contest at a Siberian women’s prison, in which almost all the prisoners claim they are there because a man “cajoled” them into crime.“I hate women-as-victim stories,” Ms. Coles said, although some of the features in the September issue fall into that category. She explained that some stories were in inventory and were heavily re-edited. Ms. Coles said she believes her readers are very well-educated and self-confident. One of her goals, she said, is to have “better writers for the features, and more seasoned, more sophisticated coverage of both foreign and domestic affairs.”But do women want to read that type of reporting in a glossy magazine primarily about beauty and fashion? In recent years, magazines for women, even those with an educated audience, have become fluffier, with shorter articles, brighter visuals, and a focus on celebrities-of-the-moment like Ashlee Simpson.But in the past year, advertisers complained that under Lesley Jane Seymour, the Marie Claire editor Ms. Coles replaced, the magazine, which has a circulation of more than 900,000, had lost some of its individuality.“I think Marie Claire has always gotten a pass because its features are not about the woman next door, but the woman next door in Uzbekistan,” Sally Koslow, a former editor of Lifetime and McCall’s, said. “I would like to see her try to bring ‘smart’ reporting closer to home,” she said. But Ms. Koslow also noted, “Sometimes, the real problem isn’t the readers — though I do think it is easier to get these stories than to get readers to read them — but the advertisers. They don’t want their beauty and fashion ads adjacent to stories about unpleasant things.”So far, though, advertisers have been supportive. “I like what she did with the September issue,” Matina Karadiakos, Executive Vice President and Group Media Director of Optimedia US, whose clients include L’Oreal, said. “The magazine looks better, and it is more sophisticated. And I like the articles. The way things are today, young women really should be more interested in what is happening to women around the world.”Though past editors of Marie Claire like Bonnie Fuller and Glenda Bailey have used the magazine as a stepping-stone to jobs at better known magazines and bigger pay checks, Ms. Coles isn’t yet thinking that far ahead. “The only future I am thinking about,” she said, “is what is going to be in the October issue.”

Editor Puts Her Stamp on Marie Claire

Editor Puts Her Stamp on Marie Claire

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