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En Vogue celebrates Teen Vogue’s 6th anniversary
by JACQUELINE SCOTT
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
To celebrate the 6th anniversary of Teen Vogue’s launch, throughout February and March En Vogue will spotlight signature Teen Vogue elements, key people behind the magazine and the history.
At first, people were skeptical about fusing fashion and teens.
After all, not many
teens can appreciate Vogue’s Annie Leibovitz or Ellen von Unwerth
photoshoots, nor can many teens, still naïve and inexperienced, grasp
such concrete, heavy-reading topics as suicide and drug abuse.
Teen Vogue boils down an issue to its skeleton by making those heavy
topics that much more readable and relatable to without babying those
topics or adding a fluff substitute.
In its early stages, people also wondered how the perfect fusion could
come to exist without lowering Vogue’s standards by being too frou frou
‘teeny’ and yet, not too insensitive to the teen readers.
To insure a foundation of readers, Condé Nast Publications published
four test issues since 2000, reaching a circulation base of 450,000.
The positive response convinced Anna Wintour, the Editor in chief of
Vogue, that Teen Vogue would be a successful addition to the Condé Nast
family.
“[The response] has convinced us that there is a place in the market
for a sophisticated teen magazine,” she said in PR Newswire Ltd.
interview. “I think of the Teen Vogue reader as a young version of the
Vogue reader: someone who demands authoritative and practical fashion
and beauty coverage, with a wide range of interests to be met.”
I remember receiving my first official copy of the Teen Vogue February/March 2003 issue
in the mail. The cover girl, Gwen Stefani, was smirking right at me,
beckoning me to delve through the pages for “Sexy scene stealers,” “Hot
guys who rock,” and “Making it big.”
It wasn’t the typical 8.5-inch by 11-inch size magazine. It was much
smaller, much more personal. It made for easy travel and easy read. It
was all my own. It was fresh. It was new.
After countless reads and thumb-throughs, it fit snug into my magazine
library with my other copies of Vogue, Vanity Fair, W, In Style,
Glamour, and Nylon.
It became my Bible. It became love at first read. Later, after years of
subscription, I would find this love to continue growing.
Through the years, Teen Vogue has continued its dedication to providing
pop culture icons as well as under-the-radar celebrities as the cover
images.
Difficult topics, such as alcohol abuse or teen pregnancy, have also
been covered without any remnants of a glossy sugarcoating that a teen
magazine may be guilty of spreading thick.
These hard topics are woven with such craft that teens can understand
the issues at hand, to be able to formulate their own opinion and to be
knowledgeable.
For its 6th year, Teen Vogue has maintained a balance of beauty and
teen fashion with a combination of hard news features that present
teens with the facts.
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