Allure Magazine 1998-1998

The covers from spring 1998 are very important because March was the first cover that shows the growing obsession with celebrities and their habits and love lives. Another prevalent aspect in these two issues is the magazine replacing the doctor.

Visually, there is a small banner in the top right corner of the March issue that reads “Special Issue: Celebrity Beauty.” There is also “Jennifer Aniston in the Fast Lane” with a quote from her interview “Seat Belts are a Good Idea,” and finally “Primping For the Oscars: The Stars, The Experts, Their Top Secrets.” Allure’s main objective in this issue is to give the reader an “inside” or exclusive look into the lives of celebrities, the reasons behind their beauty, and most importantly how you can do it yourself. Magazines need to generate sales, generating sales requires remaining fresh, new, and full of relevant and intriguing content. As other magazines veered toward celebrity obsession, Allure had to follow suit, in a beauty-related way. This translated into the line about the Oscars. The use of the word “primping” connotes much effort put into the appearances of celebrities before an event, which could be useful to the reader to look just as glamorous. Additionally, by mentioning the stars, experts and ‘top secrets,’ the magazine displays the idea that mastery of beauty techniques are revealed by those who work with celebrities. It also conveys the message that celebrities are naturally beautiful, but have access to secrets that make them appear that way. Sending this false message to readers that buying $20 lipstick or a face cream has the ability to turn a soccer mom from Wisconsin into Kate Winslet is deceptive, yet effective for selling the magazine. Moreover, unlike the past where the makeup tips and tricks coexisted with images of models on the cover, the tips and tricks are paired with a specific celebrity. In this instance, these tips and tricks vaguely suggest that using them will make the reader look like Jennifer Aniston.
The second theme in the March 1998 and April 1998 issues is replacing the knowledge of a doctor with the knowledge of a magazine editor, by both pointing out faults of the doctor, and offering magazine-provided solutions. This can be seen in “What your doctor never asks you” and “New! Allure Solves Your Beauty Problems.” Readers both want to find out what their doctor is doing wrong, and more importantly the suggestions that Allure will have to remedy this. As mentioned in previous posts this is extremely problematic. First these types of messages are the beginnings of a society full of hypochondriacs obsessed with self-diagnosing via Internet and other means. Additionally, what makes Allure a reputable authority when it comes to medicine? Beauty, maybe, but medicine? In terms of Allure solving beauty problems, this may be more up their alley but at the same time is also signifies that not only does Allure suggest and report beauty products and techniques, but it also can fix the problems that you have with beauty. Thinking about this claim, it actually doesn’t make sense. What constitutes a beauty problem? Allure knows that they don’t have to specify to sell their magazines they simply need to claim that they can solve a problem related to women’s low self-confidence in the beauty department and that will be enough to sell the magazine.