How would looking back at the past help to create a better future? Invent new ideas? Improve things? That’s what exactly archiving does; looking back at those items that existed in the past to help generate ideas or to study what happened in the past.
ELLE 1985-1998 ARCHIVES
ELLE 1998 Issue
Cocoa butter in ELLE magazine? Wow… I didn’t expect that at all but how on earth did Cocoa Butter end up featured in ELLE? Later on, I soon discovered…
August 1995 Issue: Article “ELLE Who’s Who Model Mums”
Palmer’s Cocoa Butter was used to get rid of stretchmarks due to the trend of having children; particularly in the 90’s where being a model and having a child was considered a trend. That’s the real reason, but I think there could be an influence of getting the ‘supermodel look’ theme going on in the other issues because it constantly kept on advertising contraceptives or talking about it in articles, slimming products… the list goes on. Adding to that would be, Cocoa butter is used widely by black women as a moisturiser for their skin. Could it be that Naomi Campbell whom was a very well known supermodel be an influence of the cocoa butter? After all, in the 90’s everyone wanted to have that toned body and perfect skin. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Naomi Campbell maintained her skin using cocoa butter; which sooner or later spread among women.
What shocked me even more was the fact that ELLE had advertisements for abortion clinics. I may be lost for words, but today’s society abortion is very much kept under the tables. No one really speaks of it and certainly no magazines advertise that. It baffles me how in the 90’s it were a trend to be a supermodel mum but at the same time it was all about “look good, feel good” and… not to get pregnant. Even cosmetic surgery were advertised heavily just in one page!
PERFUME ADS
There were so many perfume adverts in all of the issues, particularly the Paco Rabanne perfume; it was advertised for at least 4 pages. They even had the scratch and sniff on some pages. Perfumes were still brand new back then, so I would imagine this would still fascinate the market back then hence the heavily advertised ELLE.
CALVIN KLEIN
Calvin Klein has kept it’s black and white, sexy, casual topless (or white vests) and jeans aesthetic until today. Young Kate Moss is featured in this Advertorial.
EDITORIAL
August 1995 Issue. Page 131. [Editorial] Model: Stella Photographer: Raegan Cameron
As nice as this Editorial looks, it’s very much skimming the ‘Advertorial’ due to the small and sneaky advertisement of a hotel the ELLE team stayed at for this shoot. It advertises the area of Chelsea and Knightsbridge and says that, “It is ideally located for shops and restaurants.” From what I remember in the 90’s, it was a time of leisure and going out. No matter if the TV was already invented, a large part of my childhood and people I know who grew up in the 90’s spent most of their time outside. It’s very interesting how it was so normal to advertise EVERYTHING back in the 90’s, whereas today people get annoyed by seeing adverts on TV or on Youtube.
To conclude, I think magazines were a really big thing in the 1980’s-1990’s because it was at a point where people still enjoyed going out for leisure activities yet television had already long existed and new forms of technology were emerging like the VHS, cassette players, video games and so on. I would imagine the magazine to be another platform for advertising; instead of using the TV (which the advertisements were more for a can of baked beans or cleaning products, anything to do with the homes) because supermodels like Naomi Campbell were being featured in them and it was seen as luxurious to be in the same magazine as supermodels. I think ELLE generally targets women from the ages of 19-30. Purely because the advertising are always to do with looking good or becoming slimmer; if not contraceptives. Compared to today, magazines are not dying out but they are selling a lot less and becoming more independent. A lot of them have gone digital such as DAZED; although they still sell hard copies there is more convenience in accessing it online whenever and wherever without having to leave the bedroom. The good thing I like about E-Magazines is the fact you can choose what you want to read. Unlike, if I bought an ELLE magazine in the 90’s, I’d have no choice but to purchase it with the useless adverts that’ll just annoy me and waste my time flicking through them to get to the content I want to see.
Justine Zamora 