TheWrap’s 2010 Fall Fashion Magazine Weigh-In

Here’s the good news: September issues are looking fat again — if not as fat as before the bust

After a few years of looking as thin as the models that inhabit them, fall fashion magazines are getting back into pre-recession shape. That is, they’re looking fat again.

As we did this time last year, TheWrap took to the newsstand to scour the major fashion titles — all 4,254 pages of them — to find the winners and losers in the much-watched category.

We also literally weighed them.

The total weight was 16.58 pounds, up from 15.34 last year, though not nearly as heavy as 2008, when the group was a collective 21 pounds. (Publishers may be busy rolling out flashy iPad apps, but for fashion and women’s magazine enthusiasts, September is the month to stack a thick slab of glossies on the coffee table.)

Vogue’s September issue was the heaviest, at 2.89 pounds, and turned in both the most total pages (726) and ad pages (492). It was a big turnaround for Anna Wintour's tome, at least compared to 2009, when Vogue’s 584 pages (447 ad pages) weighed a downright waif-ish 2.39 pounds.

Time Inc.'s In Style was a distant second, at 2.25 pounds, 600 total pages and 372.6 ad pages — just edging out Hachette’s Elle, which was 2.2 pounds, 562 pages and 363 ad pages thick.

A cover line on Glamour’s September issue touts it as the “biggest issue in 20 years,” but its 420 pages and 1.7-pound frame was smaller than Harper’s Bazaar, which was 508 pages and weighed just over two pounds. (Nonetheless, Glamour editor Cindi Leive noted on Twitter: "Oh no! A reader just wrote that our Sept issue was so heavy she dropped it on her foot [and] … broke her toe! Sending her a gift card to @zappos.")

In terms of year-over-year comparisons, Lucky was unlucky, dropping to 258 total pages from 310 last year — including about 20 less ad pages — and slipping to under one pound.

Allure was the only other fashion title not to increase its page count in 2010 — holding at 212.

Here's the breakdown:

Comments