September 25, 2009
Meet The Gentlewoman
I was beginning to think Fantastic Man’s promise of a parallel title for women was some kind of in-joke. But issue ten of the magazine, out this week, features sample stories from the new publication, christened The Gentlewoman. Here are some of those pages.
As I wrote before, it’s a brave move to take the irony and coy humour that Fantastic Man applies to the men’s market and make it work in the far more conservative women’s market. But they’ve done a good job, even the name announces itself with the same knowing glee as Fantastic Man. A good start.
I like these tests, though, particularly the powernapping story below. They just about get away with the comedy breasts, above.
The sample pages look very similar to Fantastic Man, but that may be just so they work in the context of the men’s magazine. We’ll know more next year when issue one of Gentlewoman appears.
Meanwhile, it’s normal service at Fantastic Man. More pages, same droll humour. The project is a rare success story in today’s doom and gloom magazine industry, with the new title coming, a supplement sponored by Absolut (below) and plans for a new website (above). And Ewan McGregor on the cover is a very commercially savvy decision, probably their most obvious subject yet but still just the right side of populist.
It will be interesting to see how the magazine develops as it edges more toward the mainstream. Can it maintain it’s cool? Will we get bored?
3 Comments
Comment on September 25, 2009 by Paul Harpin says:
Perhaps if the Fantastic Man and the gentlewoman got together they could make a wonder child.
Comment on September 29, 2009 by Eric says:
i find it kind of crazy how many ads they have in the front of this issue. also, it seems more photo-heavy than in the past, with less of an emphasis on writing, which is a shame.
Comment on March 9, 2010 by Michael says:
There are shortcomings in your summary about fashion but that not the point here. I don’t know what you meant about a conservative women’s market, they could have easily forayed into something much bigger but being Dutch…
To me people have become illusional. The design is just a facade for fashion styling that bares no relation the the actual reality man. It’s even worse when there is a power monopoly because of the magazine’s connections to whatever top editor. Honestly, I don’t need to see models wearing coned tip bras. It’s been done. And can’t they find women who are unknown than picking women from their contact list? There is something perverse about the whole magazine to be really honest. Gentlewoman seems pretty gimmicky and Fantastic Man bordering on incredible self-vanity.
