Five years ago two young men on the editorial staff of Street & Smith, publishers of pulp-paper magazines, had an idea.
They would start a fashion magazine for schoolgirls and young women — a sort of junior Vogue. And they would call it Mademoiselle.
Street & Smith executives told Editors F. Orlin Tremaine and Desmond Hall to go ahead, hire an office, put out a few is sues : Street & Smith would pay the bills. Mademoiselle came out in February 1935. It was such a flop that Editor Tremaine gave up and went back to Street & Smith. Editor Hall stayed on, but skipped the March issue entirely.
Last week Mademoiselle, its April 1940 issue on the stands, could sit back and celebrate a rare miracle of the publishing business. Its March and April issues, fat with profitable advertising, were an aggregate 448 pages thick, a particularly extraordinary fact because Street & Smith's other publications carry virtually no advertising. With a circulation of just over 300,000 this month, Mademoiselle is far ahead of Vogue (218,762) and Harper's Bazaar (202,407). But Mademoiselle, a monthly, costs only 25¢. Vogue and Harper's Bazaar come out twice a month, cost 35¢ and 50¢.
Mademoiselle's phenomenal success brought no joy to Desmond Hall, because Desmond Hall resigned three years ago. The editor who raised Mademoiselle up from an awkward miss in pigtails is a dark-haired, well-groomed woman not yet 35: Betsy Talbot Blackwell.
Woman's Touch. When Betsy Blackwell went to Mademoiselle as fashion editor it obviously needed a woman's hand. That year Mademoiselle struggled along with 30,000 readers.
Then Betsy Blackwell brought a homely Boston nurse, one Barbara Phillips, to Manhattan for a whirlwind shopping tour, and made her over completely: new clothes, new hair, a glamorous makeup. Nurse Phillips gave Mademoiselle so much publicity that Betsy turned the stunt into a contest for ugly girls. From thousands of photographs of sad-eyed ducklings Betsy would choose one, send her home a cinema swan. Mademoiselle's circulation reached a peak of 178,057 in May 1939, began falling again.
About that time Mrs. Blackwell had an idea. She decided to put out a college issue, written and edited (during summer vacation) by college girls. From a dozen women's schools she picked 13 girls, invited them to Manhattan, gave them lunch and carfare but no salary, let them publish an issue of Mademoiselle under the tutorial eyes of her staff. The girls went home like Nurse Phillips raving about Mademoiselle. That trick put Mademoiselle in the money. (It is now a yearly stunt.) From 168,765 last July, circulation skyrocketed to 241,740 in August, went on climbing.
Formula. Unlike other fashion magazines Mademoiselle has a collegiate atmosphere. It appeals to women between 17 and 30, and its editorial voice sounds more like the glib chatter of 17 than like 30's cool sophistication. It is definitely cute.