Harper's Bazaar is an American monthly fashion magazine first published in New York in 1867. The magazine covers high fashion and beauty trends, celebrity updates, culture and politics. Using the 4C's theory, we can see that it appeals to a 'Mainstreamer' as they tend to take inspiration from other people. An 'Aspirer' would also be appealed because they value appearance.
Regularly the cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine features a public figure, normally a woman, as the main feature of the cover, with a plain light coloured background to assist in highlighting the celebrity. This is done to intrigue an audience but to also reflect on the magazine's chic ideologies.
This is the May issue of the magazine featuring Precious Lee, an American model, actress, writer and activist. Precious is the first black curve model to feature in a cover of Vogue magazine, and is paving the way for inclusivity in the fashion industry, and this is reflected on in one of the cover lines which features a quote of her 'We deserve to be celebrated and seen" which targets the lack of diversity within the fashion industry, something that represents Eurocentric features and thin bodies most of the time as the ideal physical characteristics.
The other headlines are typically common in the magazine. Fashion and selfcare cover most of the magazine's topics, showing that the magazine is valuing recency. The use of exaggeration in terms such as 'dream season' and 'best skin of your life" directs the audience to read the magazine in order to achieve an overall great perspective of their appearance.
Celebrities are used as a way to attract a wide variety of audiences worldwide. As most of these celebrity features have connections with the modelling industry, the magazine allows them to reflect on themselves and an individual. Exploring 'wisdom' and discussing how 'beauty is personal and what it means to them' allows the readers to also reflect on themselves as individuals.
Hapar's Bazaar's YouTube channel covers a wide range of topics, from diets to skincare, interviews to the makings of music videos. There is however, a limited amount diversity in the content they create, as these seem to be the only topics shown across the channel. This an example of an unique yet popular theme within the account, something titled 'Go To Bed With Me'. This allows celebrities to share their night time beauty care routine to viewers and fans, which allows them to view a more personal side of the celebrities.
The 11 minute almost Vlog like video features Precious applying products and discussing her experience with them and more personal topics like her career. Because of this, a part of the audience may peruse into purchasing the exact same products, some which can be extremely pricy, in order to achieve a replica of the model's skin. It can be argued that magazines aim to produce dissatisfaction to the audiences' appearances in order to advertise product, however, this is not evident in this video as it is more of a personal review and a way for the viewers to feel more connected with the feature.
The homepage of Harper's Bazaar's website is mostly covered by a collage of images of models posing in the streets in high fashion, highlighting the chic and rich ideologies. 'Street Style Straight from the Couture Shows' indicates how the magazine values fresh and current fashion trends, whilst showing the audience that this is what is considered to be trendy by notable, important people in the fashion industry.
Websites provides some advantages, such as being able to cover recent headlines and updates. As Harper's Bazaar is a monthly issue magazine, it is uncommon to see these featured, unless it is something which has a significant impact on the world. Scrolling down, you can see a collection of blogs produced by the journalists and writers working for Harper's Bazaar. Most of them are sectioned into categories, but, you can selectively choose what topics you are interested in using the sidebar.
Looking through the website, I noticed a section titled 'Features'. Here, the magazine uplifts voices from journalists from minority groups. The magazine gives a platform for the journalists to speak about experiences and issues not just surrounding the fashion industry, but also elsewhere. An article I looked at was from Leslie Nguyễn-Okwu, a black and Asian journalist from Dallas. The article gives a personal experience on how her parents changed her name and the xenophobia herself and her parents faced, and still faces today in New York. External links are at the page which helps the audience to find out more information about the journalist, allowing them to gain a connection.
The website also has icons and links to their social media accounts. This allows the magazine to gain a higher demographic and to showcase their content on accessible platforms to a much wider audience. With the decline in sales with newspapers and magazines, it is important that the companies explore new ways to promote and gain profit online. One example is with online advertisements, which are displayed on their website (arguably, the advertisements are popped up just a little bit too often) and on their social media platforms, usually done in a more creative way.
Harper's Bazaar's official website:
The article from Leslie Nguyễn-Okwu
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