Mademoiselle (magazine)

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Mademoiselle was a United States women's fashion magazine that started in 1935. It was first published by Street & Smith and later owned by Condé Nast. Based in New York, it combined fashion with literature, publishing short stories by famous writers such as Truman Capote, Ray Bradbury, Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Flannery O’Connor, and many others. Julia Cameron wrote a regular column. The early art director was Barbara Kruger, and from 1961 the art director was Cipe Pineles.

In 1952, Sylvia Plath’s short story “Sunday at the Mintons” won a prize and was published in Mademoiselle, and her 1953 guest editorship at the magazine inspired her novel The Bell Jar. The August 1961 “college issue” featured Willette Murphy, the first African-American model in a mainstream fashion magazine. Fern Mallis, who would become a fashion leader, started there after winning a guest editor contest and stayed on for six years.

In the 1960s, Mademoiselle targeted the “smart young woman,” not teenage girls—readers were often college students or working women facing the changes of the atomic age. The magazine continued through the 1980s and 1990s with top models on its covers. Elizabeth Crow became editor-in-chief in 1993. The final issue appeared in November 2001, and some staff and features moved to Glamour. The magazine ended because it struggled to stay current and to attract enough advertising revenue.