In Style Magazine Representation

In Style magazine is a sophisticated magazine aimed at young, working class women however, it is also suitable for teenage girls to be able to read and this magazine influences them too. This magazine is all about fashion, looking your best, diet plans, designer clothing and how to make sure you are staying a head of 'upcoming trends.' It places huge emphasis on having the best and latest clothing and even shows ways that you can look like a certain celebrity by comparing an outfit that they are wearing to clothes that working class people are able to buy. Even though these clothes are supposed to in fact be cheaper and more affordable than the clothes the celebrity is wearing they are actually almost just as expensive and in my opinion, completely unaffordable unless you have a very well paid job. This magazine creates negative stereotypes because it makes the readers believes that they have to have the most expensive, designer clothes in order to stay on top of the fashion world and in trend.

In Style magazine has strategically used certain colours, images and dialogue on their front cover to try and draw the viewer in. In style has attempted to relate their front cover to their target audience as much as they possibly can because as much as people try to say they don't judge a book by its cover, they definitely do with magazines. If it looks appealing from the outside, people are more inclined to purchase it, even if the articles inside aren't very good.

The picture of the magazine above actually uses slightly different colours and pictures on its cover and is different to the one that I analysed however I'm sure that the colour, images and dialogue were used for the same purposes.

In Style has used Anne Hathaway as their cover girl. Anne Hathaway is a very famous actress who their target audience would be familiar with. She has pale, milky skin, luscious, brown, curly hair and big pink lips. She tends to be what many would consider to be a stereotype of a 'high class' women/actress and actually looks more british rather than American.

The magazine editors have used the colours purple, silver, white and black. These colours were specifically used to make the magazine look 'high fashion' and for the upperclass viewer. This is because women associate these colours with certain stereotypes. Purple was probably used by the editors to make the cover appeal to women because purple is a stereotypically feminine colour that will catch a women's attention and make them look at the magazine. Purple is associated with royalty and it symbolises power, nobility, luxury and ambition. It also conveys wealth and extravagance and is associated with wisdom and creativity so stereotypically, these are all things that women want to be associated with. The colour silver was used to add an expensive and glamorous look to the cover which will make it more appealing to high class women. Black and white colours were used in the writing and background to make it look bold and standout to the eye to ensure that it will attract viewers.

There was only one other image used on the cover of In Style which was a silver ribbon. It is placed on the bottom right hand corner with a shiny, glossy effect. I personally think that it has been placed here to draw the reader in and make them want to open the page, especially because we associate ribbons with presents that need to be opened and In Style is trying to make the reader think that their magazine is a gift to them and will help them become more trendy and beautiful.

The stories that were featured on the cover were also used to try and attract the reader. The first stories that caught my eye on the cover were "New hair, new you. Cuts and colours to transform your look." And "How to make winter layers work and still look slim". This is a negative stereotype used by In Style magazine because they assume that their target audience is only concerned with image and they way they look. They used lots of words like 'slim' and 'transform' which will attract the stereotypical young woman or teenage girl because these are things that they can relate to as they are consistently unhappy with themselves and the way they look. Another story that is featured on the front cover which is used to attract a stereotypical women is "Luxury Designer Auction". This story associates with high class working women because it uses dialogue such as 'luxury' and 'designer', which tends to appeal to their target audience and makes women think that if they have these so called 'designer' items, they will fit in with what is expected of a women. The last story that is featured on the cover is "Anne Hathaway: Shines in the new seasons best looks."  In Style has specifically uses a celebrity that is well known to attract their readers. By saying the Anne "shines in this seasons best looks" it is indicating to women that in order for them to look their best they have to have/own what Anne Hathaway has and look the way that she looks. 

Inside the magazine there were over 90 different advertisements. They consist of 13 advertising makeup, 9 for skincare, 5 for hair products, 34 for clothing/jewellery, 9 for perfume, 3 for technology and 8 for other advertisements.

None of the products advertised are reasonably priced as they are mostly all designer and supposed to be of a high quality. By advertising such expensive products In Style makes women believe that in order for them to be beautiful, they have to have top of the range products and spend all of their money. Another strategy that In Style has also used, along with many other magazines is putting advertisements into their articles. For example; one article may be talking about how a specific designer rose to fame. Throughout the article there will be lots of references to products designed buy that particular designer and it will tell people how and where they can buy them. Not only In Style magazine, but the media in general makes young women in society feel as if the can never be perfect and in their advertisements they show these 'stereotypically perfect' models wearing expensive heels and lots of makeup and own the best products. This makes women feel as if they can never be perfect because they are constantly comparing themselves to the products and people shown in these magazines, this is a strategy that a lot of magazines like to use because it truly makes young women and teenage girls believe that they in order to be beautiful, they have to buy these expensive products. Not to mention most of the models that have been used for these advertisements have been re-touched or airbrushed. So it sets a completely unrealistic image for young woman and girls to compare themselves to.  

This magazine has offered many articles about how to become more stereotypically beautiful, skinny or even how to change the way you look to impress a guy. However, they haven't offered any articles about people, places or objects outside of their target audience. There are no articles in this magazine supporting human rights, people with disabilities, environment issues or even animal rights. It has only concentrated it's stories, advertisements and images for a specific group of people even though this group of young, wealthy, beautiful women is only a small portion of the world. In Style, along with many other fashion and gossip magazines do not want to put issues such as coping with a disability or how to keep the environment clean in their magazines because they simply do not care about these issues, well on paper at least. Magazines only put in articles, advertisements and images to gail audience appeal. They exploit women to make them feel as if they have to have the latest clothes to be liked or pretty. They in no way what so ever want to take a step out of line and put a new or different article in their magazine because it may cost them readers. This is a shame because generally people in society are completely unaware of some of the terrible issues that are happening within the world and if people want to read about these issues, they often have to buy an entirely different magazine and spend more money on something that they have usually not ever had to care about because it doesn't directly effect them. 

Even though In Style is a magazine that is mostly aimed at young, working class women it, along with many other magazines of the same genre, still have a major influence on teenage girls in society and how they feel about themselves. This is due to the fact that they feel as if they have to maintain the high standard of the way they look for virtually their whole life. In Style magazine and many magazines in general have a lot of expensive items of clothing, makeup, jewellery etc advertised in it. Because there are so many advertisements, In Style portrays this as 'normal' to teenage girls so they grow up and mature believing that they have to be perfect and own lots of expensive clothes.  It encourages teenage girls and even makes them believe that when they eventually have a job and earn a wage that they have to spend all of their money on looking their best and owning the most expensive products in order to stay perfect and beautiful, which is not something that we want society to believe is normal.