I meant to do a post on the French edition of Grazia magazine a while back, but, in between one fashion week and the other, I got distracted.
As you may know, fashion weekly Grazia originated in Italy and is currently published by the Mondadori Group (owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose Fininvest company was recently sentenced to pay 750 million euros to Carlo De Benedetti’s rival media group CIR as a compensation for Fininvest destroying the value of its stake in Mondadori a while back).
In the early 80s, Grazia looked to my young girl’s eyes like an interesting and colourful magazine: it may not have featured wonderful photo shoots like the ones done during the 60s, but it still looked interesting.
As the years passed, though, the Italian edition of Grazia became rather depressing.
Mainly aimed at a readership of depressed women between 45 and 53 with a miserable sex life, the magazine is riddled with columns written by middle-aged boring men like obsequious Italian journalist Bruno Vespa, devoted admirer of Mr Berlusconi and a crossover between a scheming Machiavelli and Gollum (of Lord of the Rings fame) with the dubious morals of Bishop Marcinkus and a propensity for finding himself on the spot of tragedies 60 seconds after they happen.
Not all the columns are written by middle-aged men, there is also a man (another?) in his forties, 'journalist' Filippo Facci, probably the secret son of a night of orgies between Silvio Berlusconi, Bruno Vespa, a snake and a donkey (NB Facci recently blocked his page on Wikipedia, so I can now expect to be sued by him...).
Facci's column is entitled "Women's Imperfection" and basically contains what I think are random thoughts he penned on his school diary when he was 10 years old.
The title of one of his most recent pieces was "Men may be animals, but women are real geese" and was a, erm, 'clever' comparison between men, women and animals (look: ah - ah - ah, I'm still laughing); another gem was entitled "If you think you aren't able to change, then I'm no use to you. And I don't want you". Why Facci is paid to write such cretinous things is a complete mystery.
Photo shoots are usually rather boring in the Italian version of Grazia: when the theme is lingerie, cotton bras and knickers in soft pastel colours seem to prevail, just in case models in black and lace lingerie may tempt the readers with their sensuality and eroticism. The mag also seems to have quite a lot of ads and photo shoots about kids fashion, strange in a country with a very low birth rate.
Compared to the Italian version of Grazia, a publication that conceives its readers as frustrated and depressed women caught up in a permanent physical
and mental menopause, its British counterpart is a seedy brothel full of young models and celebrities.
Leafing through its pages you may think the average British reader lives on gossips, parties and fun, only goes to the cinema to watch girly films about fashion and overcrowded wardrobes and doesn't read anything else but chick lit novels (“chick lit” - oh the horror, the horror…).
Disliking the Italian edition of Grazia and finding the UK edition rather superficial, I thought I may have been luckier with the French edition.
The first issue was published at the end of August and came out in 250,000 copies, though the aim of its publisher, Mondadori France, is to reach 160-170,000 copies a year.
From what I know, it took one year to make this first issue come out in between strange thefts and disappearances of computers at the mag’s office and other assorted shenanigans.
Yet, after seeing the much-flaunted first issue I had the feeling that a computer literate 13 year old would have been able to reproduce the content and lay out of that lost first issue of the mag in just 24 hours.
The first issue of the magazine was indeed too similar to its British cousin, celebrity on the go on the cover and fancy pop titles included.
As you know, France has enough interesting women - among them writers, directors, actresses, politicians, singers and musicians - to fill up not only entire magazines, but entire books, so I can't see why they should fill up Grazia’s pages with Kate Moss, Beth Ditto, Emma Watson, Agyness Deyn or Victoria Beckham. Yes, it’s trendy you may say, but it looks as if the editor was ashamed of being French.
Why all this "Anglomania"? Why not focusing on more exclusive things, such as reportages about the state of haute couture from the point of view of the people who actually produce it? I’m in favour of internationalism, but in this case a good compromise between what happens in France and what happens in the rest of the world (and not just in the UK) would have been much better, otherwise why would a French woman want to read this magazine rather than its English edition (language barrier excluded)?
The magazine is rescued by its final section on culture, books, films, music and TV programmes – a more coherent section compared to the one in the Italian version, but it’s not enough to make the publication look unique.
Grazia France is indeed a sort of hybridic creature born out of a mutant marriage between its Italian and British versions.
Ernesto Mauri, Chairman of Mondadori France, stated a while back that the mag was aimed at a readership between 25 and 45 and the main themes of the magazine had to tackle news, culture and lifestyle in a direct and at times transgressive language.
I’m honestly not sure they managed to do it and to create a covetable publication in a very vital market that probably offers more possibilities than the slightly more saturated and basically moribund Italian market.
Yet, after closing a few magazines – among them also the rather interesting fashion and lifestyle publication Mixte – and selling eight titles, Mondadori France will have to try and find a better recipe to make women falling in love with Grazia. A good idea would be to start injecting more French chic into it.
The Italian version should instead be completely revolutionised, purged of obnoxious demented men who can't write and sparked up with massive doses of excitement and dynamism. The UK edition? Well, more intelligence and fewer pics of shoes wouldn't hurt. Women walk, but - though this may be a shocking revelation to some people out there - they also think.
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