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The Gentlewoman

Fantastic Man has been hugely influential on the men’s magazine market. Can its new sister The Gentlewoman have a similar effect? With today’s launch of the new title, we have a chance to judge.

The launch issue invokes a number of famous women in its editorial, including Germaine Greer, Patty Hearst, Janet Jackson and Olga Korbut, as it describes an optimistic outlook focused on the remarkable and contemporary rather than celebrity. Like Fantastic Man, this is a magazine about people as much as about fashion, and it takes this role seriously, avoiding the slightly indulgent irony of its brother magazine.

The front cover leads with an heroic black and white portrait of Phoebe Philo set on a pastel pink field and a lower case logo in Futura. It received mixed comments when I first showed it here last week, and it’s certainly a bravely subtle first cover. When you see the real thing it is a strong cover, with that same dimpled finish to the paper that Fantastic Man has, and sets the tone for the rest of the magazine. I wonder, though, whether it’s strong enough to stand out in a far more crowded market than Fantastic Man has to face. Is sheer difference enough to stand out?

The editorial and design approach shares much with it’s brother. The pages rely less on masculine column rules and structure than Fantastic Man’s signature layouts, but have a familiar monochrome look and feature large chunks of white space. Headlines use Futura, never shouting, while text is Futura and Times.

It’s a strikingly simple design that is very different to any other women’s magazine I can think of. It shares a spareness with UK Elle, but the dominance of sans serif fonts ancentuates the simplicity (and ironically harks back to Elle’s traditional use of Futura, albeit in a very different way)

Editorially it is simple too, again like its brother. Divided into three parts, Modernisms, Features and Fashion, the writing is unmannered and simple. Print designer Josephine Chime discusses how she travels around London; Julie Verhoeven talks about how to be nice; Daisy Lowe discusses housekeeping; artist Anna Blessman describes sharing live-work space with boyfriend Peter Saville. All provide small but interesting insights that tell you much about their subjects without being run-of-the-mill profile pieces.

Daniel Riera’s striking portraits of a group of women working in various parts of the fashion industry all have clothing credits, but are presumably intended to be a slice of real(ish) life, a traditional way of reflecting the reader back at themselves. The positioning of the faces across the centre gutter is disturbing but adds further to the real-life caught on the hop vibe.

Colour is kept a minimum, but when used is very effective. I expect this interview (above) with winemaker Sara Pérez will come to be seen as the archetypal Gentlewoman feature: an in-depth look at a working woman that is genuinely interesting but also fits a certain template. Although outside and apart from the epicentre of fashion, this is the glamourous end of modern womenhood, a life spent developing a wine-growing business while looking after a young family, oozing lifestyle. The sudden splash of colour (above) is very effective.

The one part that shares Fantastic Man’s archness is a centre section on uncoated stock (the rest of the magazine is printed on high gloss) that features a series of ‘references’ – footnotes – to the magazine content. Here are explanations of various details in the writing, the entire issue’s sidebars in one serving if you like. This lets the pages be barer than they might otherwise be, while still giving the reader the additional information. I like this a lot.

A typically challenging spread from the issue – two columns of text opposite a sparse, almost abstract seascape.

Fashion avoids the more OTT examples of the teaser in the last issue of Fantastic Man, while still challenging the norm. There are six pages of the backs of heads featuring various styles of hair knots (above) and a lovely story featuring two women sharing the same style, the twist being one model is a foot taller than the other (below). Every shot (Daniel Riera again) has their two heads cropped off the top of the page, the clothes are very clear, but there’s great humour to the whole thing.

Fashion details are given a change of tone too. Alexandra Catiere’s photos of jewellery were taken in London’s boutiques, where the only male presence in the whole issue is provided by the hands of ‘salesman’ fingering and holding the pieces (not shown). And Qui Yang’s still lives (below) showing the sharpened lines of next season’s clothes match their subject well.

The issue ends with three pages of tips, very much along the lines of Fantastic Man’s ‘recommended’ pages.

This is a great launch issue, I think, more than living up to expectations of what ‘Fantastic Woman’ might be. Like its brother it targets a very particular type of person, which I hope comes across in this review, but it does that well. There’s a refreshing no-nonsense approach to everything in the issue, and it appeals to my interest in being different in an engaging, warm way. It’s too early to say what its effect will be on other women’s titles, but I certainly hope they sit up and take notice.

But then of course, it’s not aimed at me. I’m very keen to hear from women out there what they make of it.