Elle (magazine) - History

History

Elle was founded in France in 1945. In the 1960s it was considered to "not so much reflect fashion as decree it", with 800,000 loyal readers and a then famous slogan : "Si elle lit elle lit Elle (If she reads, she reads Elle)". In 1981, Daniel Filipacchi and Jean-Luc Lagardère purchased Hachette magazines, which included the then-struggling Elle. Elle was then launched in the U.S. (News Corporation owned a stake in the US edition until 1988), followed by 25 other foreign editions.

Today, it is the world’s largest fashion magazine, with 42 international editions in over 60 countries. Technologically speaking, the Elle brand is a global network encompassing over 20 websites. Subscriptions account for 73 percent of readers. With the remaining 27 percent purchasing single issues, Elle is the only fashion magazine to have increased its newsstand sales in the past five years, most notably with an 18 percent increase in the first half of 2006. There are 27 Elle websites globally, which collectively attract over 1 million visitors and 26 million page views per month Elle reaches over 4.8 million readers. The vast majority (82 percent) of Elle's audience are women between the ages of 18 and 49. Elle readers have a median age of 34.7 years. Forty percent of readers are single, and the median household income is $69,973. "Our readers are young enough to think about life as an adventure and old enough to have the means to live it," said Robbie Myers, editor in chief. Elle owes its graphic signature to Art director Peter Knapp

Elle is owned by the Lagardère Group of France. It is published in the US by Hearst Magazines, in Canada by Transcontinental Media, in Brazil by Grupo Editora Abril, in Mexico by Grupo Editorial Expansión, in Argentina by Grupo Clarín, in Singapore by Mediacorp, in Serbia by Adria Media, in Turkey by Doğan Burda Magazine, in Germany by Hubert Burda Media, in Romania by Ringier and other countries including Portugal and Spain. The first UK edition was published in November 1985.

As an international magazine, Elle has offices in New York City, London, Paris, Toronto, Mexico City, Istanbul, Brussels, Tokyo, Warsaw, Belgrade, Oslo, Helsinki, Bucharest, Athens, Delhi, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Jakarta and other cities.