For nearly 90 years, Glamour magazine served fashion, beauty and relationship fare with some award-winning journalism. It won a National Magazine Award in 2023, for example, for coverage demanding federal paid family leave for American women. Its buzzy Women of the Year gala, which came with interviews and photo spreads of recipients, has feted the likes of Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears and Ms. Rachel.
But that era of Glamour appears to be over.
The publication will now be focused largely on shopping posts, according to its owner, Condé Nast — like “Granny Sandals Are the Secret to a Stylish Summer Look” and “The Best Spray Sunscreens for Easy Reapplication,” to take two recent examples. The goal is to earn commissions when readers click links to shops like Amazon and Nordstrom to make a purchase.
The company seems to be betting that Glamour’s site can still generate sizable revenue from display ads and those commissions without the costs required to produce more traditional journalism. As part of the change, Condé cut much of the publication’s already skeletal editorial staff in the United States in April, andparted wayswith Samantha Barry, its editor in chief, without apparent plans to replace her.
“It’s sad about Glamour — I saw it go through different iterations, and it really did always have a standard of being pro-women and politically being on women’s sides,” said Jane Pratt, the founder of Sassy and Jane magazines, who now runs awebsite. “By getting out of that, what they’re doing is going more into competition with the shopping portals.”
After the staff cuts in April, Glamour’s U.S. homepage — it stopped publishing in print in 2019 — has a few regular articles, like a broadcaster’s account of receiving plastic surgery, which was contributed by a laid-off staff member. The majority of headlines go to shopping recommendations. The homepage now lists the photos and titles of one of its remaining editors and four “commerce” editors and writers, who focus on shopping posts.
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Source: Drudge Report
